


beckoning the great divide

by Lady_Kaos



Series: golden gods 'verse [8]
Category: The Road to El Dorado (2000)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angels of Death, Existential Crisis, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Grim Reapers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Multi, Personification of Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:46:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Kaos/pseuds/Lady_Kaos
Summary: Chel's been running from death for a very long time.She has never expected running into it to save her life, or change the fate of her city forever.Or: Chel gives not one, but two, personifications of death an existential crisis. They get over it....Eventually.Or: An AU in which Tulio is a not-so-grim reaper, Miguel an angel of death, and Altivo the ex-horse god that very much regrets getting stranded in a dinghy with these idiots.
Relationships: Chel/Miguel/Tulio (Road to El Dorado), Miguel/Tulio (Road to El Dorado)
Series: golden gods 'verse [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1290521
Comments: 103
Kudos: 38





	1. it's just business

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a comment that requested a Grim Reaper AU and that inevitably mutated out of my control.

_1349, Tarragona_

It took the Lord seven days to create the world and everything in it.

It takes less than a week for that new plague to claim its first victims. By the time anyone realizes what has crept in with the rats, it is far too late to close the ports, or quarantine the city. People have already fled into the countryside with pestilence festering inside them.

Upon Tarragona descends an Angel of Death. He is one of many that were called into creation by the Lord the first day. Back then his older siblings had sung in exaltation to welcome the youngest of their members, for they had not yet known his purpose. Under the shadow his twelve wings, plague victims shiver all the harder. None can escape him, for his body bristles with eyes. His sword drips bitterness. One by one, he steals souls away, sometimes in comfort and others in callousness.

Weeks ago, the angel had come for people on their deathbeds and forcibly quarantined in their homes. Now there's too many bodies for the graveyards. The dead are tossed out onto the streets, and sometimes the dying with them. An Angel of Death is rarely welcomed. These days some people beg for his embrace.

A woman with black bubos constricting her throat smiles when she finally sees him. When her eyes glaze over at his touch, tears of relief still cling to her cheeks. The Angel of Death has already turned his gaze down the street, to a man struggling for every breath. Step by step, he advances to-

-A horse, gaunt and pale, thunders around the corner. Its skeletal rider swings his scythe, and severs the man's life in one cold swoop.

The Angel of Death gawks. Then every last one of his eyes narrow. "Excuse me!" he calls. "Excuse me!" The rider pauses, one bony hand clasped around a soul newly dead. "Yes, you! What are you doing?"

Blank eye sockets quizzically glance from the soul to the scythe. "...Reaping?"

"Stop that!" the angel snaps, storming their way. "He's _mine!"_

The soul should be soothed that a messenger of the Lord defends him. Instead the soul gibbers incoherently.

"Excuse you," huffs the skeletal rider. "How many souls do you have stuffed beneath your wings again?"

The Angel of Death bites back a wince. The souls bundled in his wings, numb and dreaming, don't even stir. "It-It's been a busy year. I just can't take them one by one like I usually do!"

"Aha!" The rider waves his scythe at streets brimming with plague victims. "Even you admit there's plenty to go around!"

The Angel of Death hazily counts back the centuries it's been since he last saw a pagan echo of death. Mot and Mors, Wodanaz and the Three Queens; their times in this land have come and gone. They've long since vanished with the last of their dead. And this yellowed skeleton is not familiar. "W-Who are even supposed to be?"

"Uh, Death?" the soul blurts out.

The skull's grin stretches wider. "See, this guy gets it."

**_"I'm the Angel of Death!"_ **

His voice echoes with the might of the Host, the last prayers and pleas of the countless souls he claimed before this one. The soul cowers. The skeletal rider glances up. Above Tarragona the sky is dark with the wings of the angel's brothers and sisters.

" _An_ angel," the skeletal rider points out. "An Angel of Death." The angel's face puckers. "And there's still too many for you to handle. No wonder they called me up too."

"Y-You... blowhard bag of bones!"

"And _you_ have too many damned eyeballs!"

"Heathen!"

"Braggart!"

Their volley of insults devolves into angry gestures and shaking their weapons at each other. Above the Angels of Death diligently continue their God-given task. The soul, long let go by the skeleton, nudges hopefully at his body. He grimaces at its wretched state. Not only is rigor mortis setting in, but it's still a festering vector of disease. Instead he starts petting the pale horse's nose. She leans into his touch.

An idea suddenly dawns to the angel. The eyes on his wings fixate on the soul. "You!" The soul freezes in dread. "You were Christian, born and baptized. Don't you want to be delivered by me unto your eternal fate?"

"You mean hell?" the soul asks bluntly. "Because I know damn well that's where unrepentant thieves go." The Angel of Death can't hide his guilty wince. "Yeah, I thought so." The soul arches a quizzical brow up at the pale mare's rider. "And where are you taking me?"

The skeleton cocks his head. "Um... we can try someplace that isn't hell?"

"That's the place for me!"

The Angel of Death splutters indignantly as _his_ soul clambers atop the pale mare. Several of his eyes glance anxiously upwards, as if the siblings up there might be watching him. A human soul has their whole life to confess and repent for all the sins they accumulate. Upon death, their fate is sealed, and the angels carry out the conviction proclaimed by the heaven courts. 

The Angel of Death brandishes his sword, pale fire igniting around his blade. The pale horse stares back, thoroughly unimpressed. The soul flinches back, trying his best to hide behind a bony skeleton.

The rider slowly inches for his scythe. "Are we really going to do this?"

The angel's sword glumly flickers out. "No."

The soul shudders in relief. The pale mare rears, hooves striking toward the sky. The rider salutes one flustered angel. "Better luck next time, peewee!"

There is indeed a a next time, and a time after that, an endless number of dead. The angel takes righteous lives and sinful lives. Just as indiscriminately, the reaper claims his harvest. He is not a _Grim Reaper,_ not in a medieval age that steeps its fearful resignation of the grave with irony and macabre humor. The reaper does not always come astride a pale horse. Other times he dances into town and leads a procession behind him to their graves, lords and beggars, the old and the young.

Why the reaper always fixates on this particular angel's souls, the angel himself has no idea. Maybe the reaper recognizes he's a sucker. Maybe the angel's siblings diligently drive the reaper back every time he tries to steal their charges, just as this angel should. But he's afraid of an outright fight. In the days of the Black Death fear of the grave is just as strong, if not stronger, than their faith in the life after. What if this angel makes it even worse somehow? The plague's already devouring half of every city it touches!

...And maybe, when a soul freshly ripped life would rather cower behind a skeleton than come into the arms of an angel, the Angel of Death just feels too heartsick to snatch them back. That's why he spirits away his own souls quick as he can these days. Sometimes he gets away. Other times the reaper still steals a soul from under his nose.

Worst are the times the angel and the reaper reach a soul at the same time. The angel thinks the choice between himself and a skeleton should be obvious. It's not like he's a burning wheel of eyes like the Ophanim or something! His form is mostly human. Just with twelve wings and a few hundred more eyes. Don't these people put their faith in a servant of the Lord?

Souls inevitably task if they're destined for heaven or hell. An Angel of Death is always honest. Those he assures of their place in paradise flock to him immediately. The damned almost always flock to the reaper and his vague promises of elsewhere. Very few prefer the known evil of their punishment in hell to the uncertainty of where the pale horse might take them.

The angel adapts. Folding away most of his wings and all but two of his eyes somehow makes him more palatable to mortals. Like this they believe him beautiful. More mortals rush to his embrace without asking questions. With them safe in his arms, he winks at one disgruntled reaper, and gains the upper hand. Hell stops grumbling about all the souls he lets slip through his fingers.

The reaper retaliates. He garbs his naked bones in a cloak black as night. Later still he manages to shape himself a human guise, though one even more gaunt and wan than the angel's own. Vanity aside, the reaper is a _trickster._ Try as the angel might to stay above his games, he always gets dragged into another round of insults. And accidentally reveals to the soul they're bound for hell. Oops.

Mortals are always more eager to believe the reaper after that. Especially when he offers them a simple little wager and promises if they win he'll even let them go.

Joke's on them. Unlike the angel, the reaper is a shameless liar _, and_ his dice are loaded.

It's competition, it's rivalry, it's petty drama that makes every other destroying angel roll their eyes.

...And then it's something else.

* * *

_1519, Seville_

Seville is fast becoming the beating heart of Spain's burgeoning empire. The streets around its docks bustle with faces from across the Mediterranean and beyond. A dozen tongues drift across the crowds. It's alive as only a great city can be, still newly recovered from that last influenza epidemic a decade back and just as woefully unprepared for the next one.

Down these lively streets stride two unremarkable men. Crowds unconsciously press close to walls and each other to grant them a wide berth. None dare look them in the eye or call out to them. The young and the proud tend to ignore their existence entirely. Those too old and wise for their own good pretend just as hard, convince themselves these men are _just_ men. They all sigh in relief when they're passed by.

The raucous ring of gamblers catches their eye. They stop in the center of the street, the crowd frantically flitting around them. The shorter man smiles wistfully at the sailors catcalling each other and boisterously squabbling over things petty as coins and dice. His partner, tall and gaunt, more cynically wonders what he can fleece from them. Bony fingers reach for his own set of loaded dice.

With a reluctant sigh, he leaves them safely stored away. "Come on, partner, we've got a boat to catch."

His partner pouts after the sailors, their cheering and their swearing, and follows. Instead of excitement they get to stand at the back of a far different crowd, dull-eyed and listless as a broad-shouldered conquistador whips his audience into a zealous frenzy.

"Today we sail to conquer the New World... for Spain, for glory, for gold!"

"Viva Cortes!"

Two unremarkable men roll their eyes at each other.

"I know where this one's going," murmurs one.

The other rolls deeply sunken blue eyes. "Ugh, you can totally have him."

His partner grimaces. "Well, um, we'll see what you think in another twenty years or so."

"Even more sure of that than I am today."

Cortes has chosen his crew as carefully as the disciples of Christ and tolerates no stowaways. Two unremarkable men stride right up the gangplank of his flagship. Their names are right there on the list.

The first man is corpse-pale, drowning in a dark shirt and pants only because mortal eyes refuse to see a cloak in such warm weather. His lank black hair is tied sharply off his face, revealing the harsh angles of his cheekbones and the deep hollows of his eyes. He grins unnervingly wide when he introduces himself as Tulio. It's a name that had once belonged to both patricians and commoners, one that may very well mean _he of the people._ Isn't that the truth.

The second man smiles wide and genuine. He somehow terrifies his crewmates more than the first. There's just something... overly familiar about him. His clean-shaven face might be conventionally handsome, but with a sickly undertone shared by only the most afflicted of plague victims. His hair is the yellow of dead, brittle straw. His clothes are more tailored to his form, but pale colors that remind men of bile and sputum and things far more gruesome.

"And my name is.... um, Miguel."

Tulio blinks at him. _"Miguel?"_

"Er, yes," his partner sheepishly replies. "Miguel."

"Welcome aboard," a sailor greets weakly. He never shakes their hands, and scuttles out of the way to let them embark.

"'Miguel?'" Tulio mutters, almost under his breath.

"It was the first thing that popped into my mind!"

"Isn't that your big brother that's... exceptionally zealous about his job?"

"Please," scoffs his partner. "It'll take nothing less than Judgement Day to get him down here."

Aboard for the expedition and here to stay, two unremarkable crewmates hang back as the last of the cargo is loaded aboard. Cynical eyes appraise the rigging and the dark waters of the Guadalqavir, that flow out into the fickle open sea.

"I'll bet the first one to go slips off that mast."

"Two reales says it's a drowning."

"You're on!"

On they sail.

It's their destiny, their fate.


	2. let's not make it personal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel of death should get along with a crew of zealous conquistadors like a house on fire.
> 
> If only that angel wasn't Miguel.

That first night onboard, a waning crescent shines down upon them. Men eat their suppers together in the open air. Introductions and reunions are made. Some have already spilled blood together; in the Spanish crusades and the wars against the League of Cambrai. Others are veterans of the campaigns that have already conquered the islands of the Caribbean. Miguel will have no shortage of siblings to welcome him to the New World when they stop at Cuba to resupply.

Miguel vibrates with excitement. He's concocted a whole backstory for himself; a large and pious family, jobs as a messenger and in service of the Lord. He can't wait for Tulio to call himself a reaper and smirk when someone asks what he harvests.

Instead conversation flows around them. Sailors huddle deeper into their groups, leaving a berth around two of their own. They talk over Miguel every time he tries to charm his way in. If he actually gets a word in edgewise, he kills the whole discussion, and awkwardly sends men scattering for other groups. No one shakes his hand or brushes against him even by accident. They can't even look him in the eye.

Tulio rolls his eyes and scoffs. "What did you expect, Miguel? We're here for business, not pleasure."

Miguel pouts and considers his rations. The salted beef rots at his touch. The weevil in his hardtack curls up and dies. More hopefully he tries a swig of beer. It turns sour as soon as it touches his tongue. Ugh. No wonder he never eats. He sullenly dumps the whole mess overboard. Tulio tossed his the moment after getting it. The steward that would scold any other man for wasting food glazes right over it.

The voyage soon settles into tedium. Miguel does swabbing. A _lot_ of swabbing. Sailors don't trust him in the rigging. They _definitely_ don't trust him with the gunpowder. He can't even clean up after meals! Apparently the cooks instinctively realize letting him near the food will almost certainly result in a mass outbreak of dysentery or food poisoning.

Until they reach their destination, Miguel only has so many souls under his charge. He and Tulio flit from ship to ship, watching infection and men on the rigging like hawks. They squabble for the very rare souls they get. Miguel expects a pious crew carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ to immediately leap for an angel when they see one. An infuriating number flock to Tulio and his lies about winning against his loaded dice.

Perhaps that's for the best. Most of these men are currently destined to follow Cortes in this life and the next.

Aside from the occasional return to his normal duties, Miguel is bored. The most bored he's ever been. Cortes holds his crew up to his same impeccable standards. He watches the beer barrels. There's absolutely no gambling. Every time Tulio tempts a few into an illicit game of dice, someone inevitably squeals. Apparently their nature means Tulio can even kill his own fun. It's the nature of the world that his fellow gamblers are punished and Tulio himself only gets the lightest of warnings. Not can Cortes wants to pay much regard to what must inevitably follow war and conquest.

But even Cortes recognizes the value of morale. The crew sing shanties in time to their work and indulge in sea songs on their time off, even if the lyrics are cleanest on any ship in the world. They make a game of how creatively they can censor themselves. Miguel sways to their melodies. Angels are beings of song. There exists whole orders of his sibling who have spent eternity singing in exaltation to the Lord.

When he can't help but sing too, the music always squeals to a halt. Miguel's voice is meant for dirges and requiems. It leaves sailors in tears and their morale plunged to record lows. An Angel of Death huddles sheepishly into himself and waits for their grief to pass.

In the ensuing silence, Tulio starts to sing under his breath. His favorites are the tavern songs from the last days of the Black Death, the ones laden in innuendo and seizing life before death seizes them. Back then Miguel had always bristled at such irreverence toward the fate of all men and filthy lyrics. Now he murmurs along. Enough macabre humor creeps its way onto the ship that it breaks up the black cloud Miguel called down upon them.

Really, Miguel can't even fit into _Mass._ He eagerly volunteers for that first sermon. Everyone's too terrified to tell him no. What should be a hopeful and uplifting reading for their passage into the New World instead inspires such grim sobriety in the crew that Cortes commands him to read one every Mass. At first Tulio basks in such hopeless dread of death, then crinkles his nose when someone else takes over the pulpit to deliver yet another rousing rendition of fire and brimstone.

At first Miguel nods along to such diligent warnings. Then he realizes none of these men believe themselves truly vulnerable to such wickedness of spirit. They think their mission divine, that they shall bring God and glory to the New World and be rewarded with seats of honor in heaven. They shake even an angel's faith in mankind.

Miguel stops trying to mingle. He and Tulio huddle in their own corner of the ship. Their bets against these men raise toward darker heights; war and pestilence and revolt. They sharpen their blades in preparation for all the souls to come; Miguel his sword, and Tulio his scythe. Mortal eyes glaze right over them, and sing ever louder to drown out the grinding of their whetstones.

There are more than just men aboard this ship, even though the rats once here frantically swam for the other two in the fleet. Miguel kills more weevils in every ration of hardtack. The animals penned at the back of the ship, goats and chickens and pigs, freak out if he or Tulio get too close. Their numbers dwindle each week. The crew appreciates fresh meat.

And then there is Altivo, Cortes' prize stallion. He is often given free range of the deck. Tulio, who has never gotten around to naming his own pale mare, steadfastly ignores him. Miguel gingerly avoids Altivo. Lord forbid he startle such a beautiful animal into a blind panic or kill from an accidental brush against his side.

Altivo imperiously ignores them both. A warhorse is trained for all the sounds and chaos of the battlefield. Maybe his natural fear of death has been drilled out of him too.

On an evening at first like any other, Miguel and Tulio swab down the central part of the deck. Pablo, the cook's assistant, skitters past them with a basket of red apples.

"Hey, Altivo," he calls, because the horse deserves more regard than those two unremarkable crewmates. Altivo sniffs hopefully at his basket. "Ah-ta-ta, not for you! You're on half rations. Orders from Cortes."

Pablo whips his basket away from his nose. An apple tumbles out. Before it rolls down into the brig, Miguel reflexively traps it under his foot.

"E-Excuse me, Pablo, you..." The cook's assistant only hastens his way below deck. Miguel slumps. "Never mind."

Tulio scoffs. "Like walking fast will help him when it's actually his time to go."

"I know, but..." Miguel trails off, realizing dark eyes have fixated on him. "Oh."

Oh, no.

"'Oh?'" his partner demands. "What do you mean, 'oh?'"

Altivo stares down two embodiments of death. He fearlessly approaches. Miguel gawks. He frantically snatches the apple. Even by indirectly brushing his shoe it might already be poisoned or rotted to the core. Altivo keeps coming. It's the angel and the reaper that inch back.

"Damn," Tulio breathes. "That is one desperate horse."

"E-Easy, old boy," Miguel soothes, hiding that tainted apple behind him. "This isn't worth it, really. Y-You still have so much to live f-"

A nose, large and warm, sniffs at his chest. It brushes the bare skin revealed by Miguel's too large neckline. He and Tulio freeze. Instead of keeling over, Altivo determines he has no more treats hidden there, and puffs a hot, horsey breath into his face. Green eyes widen.

A trembling hand, pale as death and cold as the grave, reaches out. It ghosts over two nostrils that flare at his touch, before gently cupping the horse's chin. Under his touch Altivo's pulse beats strong as ever. His neck is proudly arched, his frame broad, and his eyes bright and dark enough to drown in.

_Oh._

"Y-You're-"

Altivo stomps a hoof. Miguel hastily presents his apple. The stallion snaps it up in one bite, leaving only warm slobber behind.

Two unremarkable men wince. Altivo appreciatively savors the taste of his tribute, then licks at Miguel's hand for every last bit of juice. A crisp apple is one thing. A _fermented_ apple, heady as cider, is quite another.

When Tulio reaches for his mane, Altivo whips his head back and prances to the other side of the deck.

"That is _not_ one of my brothers' horses," Tulio croaks.

"No," Miguel agrees weakly. "He's... like _them._ The ones from before."

"B-Before?"

"Immortal," Miguel creaks out.

_"Immortal?"_

"As close as one can get these days."

Maybe they've met before, on some distant battlefield. Miguel might have swept up the souls laid low by his hooves. From Altivo's back he might have cut down a king or a caliph. He's been around too long to say for certain. Those distant battles against pagans blur into those against rebels and rivals and two sides that had called each other heretics and infidels.

Tulio frowns, eyes so shadowed they might as well be empty sockets. Miguel's time in Iberia stretches out into distant, dreamy memory. His partner thundered onto these shores a mere two hundred years ago.

"D-Do we... you know?"

Miguel shudders. "Not to them."

Only their people, that had carried their names and legacies. They had first bitterly fought Miguel for any soul that might be contested between them, limping along and weaker with every faithful follower that died, or convert that instead eagerly embraced an angel of death over the gods of their fathers. One by one, they had drifted away, to places a mere angel of death could not divine.

Tulio attacks the deck with newfound determination, and speaks no more that dusk.


	3. horse overboard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inevitably, Miguel does something selfless as it is stupid.
> 
> Tulio, for all his complaining, is no better.

Angels of Death do not sleep.

...Except when none of their few charges are in immediate danger of dying, and there's no better way to kill a few hours.

Like all the crew, Miguel has a hammock strung up below deck. In the dark, stuffy quarters of men that can't stand the sight of him, and that stay awake all night with grim thoughts of their own mortality if an Angel of Death tries to make himself comfy for a change. Instead he sprawls out atop the mast, with only the sea breeze and the endless stars to keep him company. It's the closest he can get to hea- _home_ without taking flight. He bundles himself in his wings and spares a final glance below.

Tulio, entirely enveloped in his cloak, snores away curled up in the corner of a longboat. Normally he appreciates being cloistered in tight, dark spaces. Except when he also happens to share those tight, dark spaces with living sailors. Snoring, sweaty, stinky sailors.

Tonight the deck is deserted. Even the men supposed to be on shift are snoring away in some cozy corner or another. Even Cortes needs his sleep. All Miguel spots is Altivo, head bobbing low and close to the starboard rail.

"Good night, Altivo," he calls.

The stallion drowsily nickers back, his eyes sliding close. Miguel grins, cozies up against the mast, and drifts off. The eternal exaltation of the Heavenly Host sinks back into a faint, comforting hum.

He doesn't dream. He never does.

Hours later, still in the dead of night, a few eyes on Miguel's wings blearily crack open. The ship is just beginning to roll with waves that promise tumult. Squinting into the distance, he can just make out the thunder and torrential downpours they will eventually sail into. He grumbles and closes his eyes. It's not their problem yet.

The waves rock him back to sleep. Then they lurch him right awake.

Miguel instinctively sinks his nails into the mast, throwing out his wings for balance. Some aboard have neither.

With a terrible scream, Altivo lurches over the rail.

_"Altivo!"_

The stallion thrashes his way back to the surface. He whinnies frantically back. It doesn't matter if he's immune to the ravages of time or a casual brush with death's icy hands. Altivo can drown like any mortal creature. He _will_ drown.

Without a thought, Miguel sails off the mast with a running leap.

Just over the wind shrieking through his ears, the exaltation of the Host falters in **_confusion, disbelief, horror, you utter idi-_**

Miguel slams into an icy, apathetic sea. The voices of his family cut off. For a terrifying moment, his leaden wings drag him down toward a bottomless abyss. He thrashes upward. Numbness descends into gaping _emptiness._

He breaks the surface, gasping for breath and somehow so much less than he was before.

**_"Miguel!"_ **

Blearily Miguel glances upward. He wonders why his partner screams that word like it's actually his name, and not just another poorly conceived alias. Then he weakly lurches onward.

"Altivo," he gasps out. "Altivo, I'm coming!"

* * *

Blissfully asleep one moment and paralyzed the next, Tulio helplessly peers over the longboat and tries to puzzle out what the hell just happened. That 'immortal' horse is flailing like any drowning creature. His partner, an _Angel of Death,_ is barely faring any better. He-He's...

"Miguel!" Tulio cries again, like it's enough to snap them all out of this nightmare.

"Just hang on!" Miguel pants, swimming for the horse's side. "I'm right here, old boy!"

"Have you lost your mind?" Tulio roars, utterly terrified at what _else_ his partner might have just lost.

"Help is coming!"

Miguel's assurances are empty platitudes. All he can do is tug Altivo's head back to the surface. They're both treading water. It's a matter of time before...

A familiar weight diligently manifests in Tulio's hands. His scythe glints in the moonlight, cold and expectant.

With a snarl, he slices through the ropes connecting the longboat to the ship, and knows he severs himself from it too. He crashes into the water, his bones aching from the paradox of death saving death, and grits his teeth to hoist up the oars. Muscles he's never used before scream in protest.

The sea bucks and rolls. The flagship throws Tulio from the longboat, the hungry current pulling him down. Their cries go unheeded. The few souls that hear Altivo's whinnies, that might stir to rescue a simple stallion, pretend to fall right back asleep when they realize the men that got thrown overboard with him. For the first time he wonders he hysterically wonders if _he_ can d-

"Loop the rope under the horse!" he orders. Miguel obeys without hesitation. "On the count of three, pull back on the rope."

"W-What?"

"Three!"

After another nauseating turn, Tulio finds himself splayed out in that damned longboat, his partner panting beside him and one very bewildered horse plopped down at the prow.

A hysterical giggle escapes Miguel. "Tulio! Hey, it w-"

The angel cuts off when Tulio drags himself upright, bony hands planting on his shoulders. He drags Miguel's loose, sodden collar down. Tulio sobs in relief to find only sallow skin, whole and unblemished, not jagged wounds from where his wings have just been wrenched.

"Oh," he rasps. "Oh, thank God."

"I didn't Fall," his partner mumbles. "I swear I didn't. I would have known if I-"

Tulio squeezes him in a bone-crushing embrace. After a moment, Miguel slumps against his chest. Something inside the reaper jolts at the contact, so he grabs his partner by the shoulders and firmly holds him back again. "Miguel, _what did you do?"_

"I..."

"Do you still have your wings?"

Miguel twitches thoughtfully under his hold. He grimaces. "Well, yes and no."

"...What?"

"I still have them," his partner assures. "I just can't, er, bring them out." His left eyelid twitches. "Or any of my other eyes. O-Or..." His right hand fumbles at thin air and the sword hilt that refuses to manifest.

With a sinking sensation, Tulio reaches for the scythe that had manifested for him not five minutes ago. He swears he sees it glinting out of the corner of his eye, for all it refuses to fall into his hands. Instead he focuses on their last reliable form of transportation. He tries to summon his pale mare. She usually shows up when needed. Now, for all he clucks and whistles and curses, her scrawny ass refuses to turn up.

"You... You f-"

Altivo snorts, ears falling back.

"Well, at least my shitty horse isn't mortal enough to drown!" Tulio snarls.

Miguel places himself between them, raising up his hands. "H-Hey now, let's not fight." He smiles, wide and hopeful. Tulio's jaw drops at the strangest expression he's ever seen from an _Angel of Death,_ and even further when his partner nudges him with an elbow. "Look on the positive side. At least things can't-"

In a cosmic irony not even Tulio can appreciate, the skies burst open.

"Excuse me," he grits out. "Were you going to say 'worse?'"

Miguel's smile becomes a wince. "No."

"No? You're sure?"

"Absolutely not," his partner insists, confidence creeping back into his voice. "I've revised the whole thing."

"Okay, because-"

"Yeah, we're at least in a rowboat!"

"We're in a rowboat, exactly," Tulio deadpans. "You miss nothing."

Miguel beams and waves an excited hand out in the vague direction the galleons vanished. _"And_ they're gonna need us real soon."

Tulio's skeletal face stretches into a smirk. So many sailors that might slip on slick wood or be blown from the rigging they must be fighting so hard to secure. No one is leaping after a soul swallowed by these ruthless seas. "Oh, they'll definitely believe in us then. Won't they, partner?"

Miguel laughs. "They'll be begging for us!" Altivo snorts. "Don't worry, old boy! Once I get my wings back I can lift you right back onboard. No one will even notice you were gone!"

The stallion stomps a hoof against the longboat and imperiously jerks his head at supplies only opposable thumbs can untie. Miguel blurts out an apology and brings out a tarp. Altivo nickers gratefully as it's draped over him. Tulio morbidly wonders if he's either just cold or just mortal enough to die from exposure. Right before Miguel finishes tucking him in, Altivo nickers again and bobs his head in invitation.

"Thank you, old boy, but that's really-" Altivo snorts. "Well, if you insist."

Tulio rolls his eyes. "Thanks but no thanks, horse. These old bones don't-"

Altivo lashes out like a striking cobra. Tulio yelps as his teeth snap close around his ponytail and yank him down into the huddle too. Miguel, the filthy traitor, bundles the tarp around around all three of them. His partner sputters indignantly.

"Oh, hush. This is better than the alternative."

"No, it isn't," Tulio grumbles, even as he subconsciously huddles close to that wall of horsey warmth. Huh. Weird that the horse still refuses to go cold and still against him.

"Yes, it is. Now try to get some sleep."

"Sleep?" he scoffs. "We won't be here long enough t-"

He squeaks as a gentle hand slides his hair tie from its bedraggled ponytail, then combs through his sodden hair. Tulio freezes. For a long time he even gives up the illusion of breathing. Miguel's strokes never falter. Tulio finally sighs and eases back.

"We're gonna smell like horse," he mumbles, just for a rhythm of normalcy.

"Mortals would argue that's miles above what we usually smell like," Miguel counters easily.

Tulio snorts, eyes sliding close. "Can't argue with you there."

* * *

For a while more their banter continues, Tulio's replies softer and less focused with every repartee. Eventually his mumbles taper off. He snuggles deeper into their living pillow and heating pad. He breathes slow and steady, because he learned the hard way humans might think he died in his sleep if he doesn't. Miguel smiles. A reaper might not have wings to preen, but stroking hair always seems to calm the most distraught of human souls.

Miguel yawns. "Quite the paradox we pulled today, old boy." Altivo nickers softly. "Oh, hush. I take _human_ lives, and you're anything but." A scolding snort. "Listen, if you ever return the favor, we'll let you know."

Reflexively he tries to bundle himself and Tulio back up in his wings. He squirms instead, most of his power still knotted up in that earlier paradox of death giving life, even if that hadn't been _his_ life to take. All he can currently do is sling an arm around Tulio's bony shoulder and scooch a little closer into Altivo's living warmth.

Green eyes wearily flutter close. "We won't be out here long, old boy. They'll need us in no time at all."

Altivo snorts again, harsh and disbelieving.

Miguel's already drifted off.

Some miles away, three ships emerge from a squall with their crews shaken but mostly unharmed, save for a few scrapes and chills. A count reveals every last soul accounted for.

...Except for Cortes' prize stallion, though there are substitutes stabled in the hold of a sister ship.

...And those two sailors no one has ever quite liked, though none can put their finger on why. Cortes leads a quick prayer for their immortal souls, then barks orders on how to best clean up the storm damage. No one misses them at all.

Instead they give praise to God that, to Cuba and beyond, their crew loses no more members.

Far adrift at sea, their deaths languish, and still assure each other they'll be needed any day now. Their reluctant companion slumps further against the prow and almost, _almost_ pleas for any other death to please come take him now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -sad trombone music-
> 
> And that's why destiny should never hinge on angels that spontaneously call themselves Miguel, or a reaper that thinks Tulio is a clever alias. Because that's how still flail into the slow boat to divinity :D


	4. the interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two idiots stranded at sea vomit their insecurities all over each other.
> 
> Altivo prays for any other death to please come take him now.

With nothing else to do, Tulio idly tallies up the pros and cons on being stranded on a gods damned dingy to being stranded on the gods damned galleon. On the bright side, no Cortes, no chores, no crew of self-righteous sailors. Down side; _no death._ At least nothing beyond the usual cruel, self-sustaining cycles of nature. Tulio's never been needed for that.

For the first time since riding his pale horse into existence, Tulio is without purpose. Without _power._ There's no souls to reap, no suckers to gamble with.

He digs in his dripping robe for any entertainment he has left. He whoops to discover his loaded dice survived the storm, then presses a kiss to them and safely stows them away. Instead he pulls out a sodden deck of cards. He and Miguel tap into their long, long memories for every game they now. Altivo insists on joining them. Even if he lacks opposable thumbs and a common language, at least he shakes up the dynamics.

When cards wear thin, they fall into charades and guessing games, then simple conversation. He and Miguel fondly reminisce over long-gone wars and plagues, their escalating competition to steal each other's souls. Most times Altivo listens in morbid fascination. Other times he perks up in recognition. Apparently he's trampled enemies on battlefields they've shared. Heh. Small world.

Before the damned dinghy Tulio never cared for weather beyond if it brought dehydration or hypothermia. Now he has bottomless complaints. The wind churns up waves that turns Altivo alarmingly green. Other times they drift in doldrums for days on end. Under a baking sun, Tulio sourly bundles himself in his cloak. He's corpse-pale as is! The last thing he needs to find out is if his complexion can _curdle_ like any human body left to broil.

"Really, partner," Tulio warns from under the safety of his cloak. "You really should cover yourself up."

Miguel, without his common sense, throws out his arms to bask in his Creator's brightest, most obnoxious contribution to the world. "Oh, you worry too much!"

"No!" the reaper spits. "I worry exactly the right amount." He gestures angrily at his gaunt, human enough face. "It took me _decades_ to perfect this. Remember when the best I could manage was looking like someone had turned me into jerky? I'm not repeating that!"

Green eyes rove him over. "Well, now that we have all this time to ourselves, isn't it the perfect time to... practice a bit more?"

Tulio's own eyes narrow. "What are you implying?"

Miguel blinks. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I just thought that since we're out here alone, with no one to judge, that maybe we could-"

"No one except _you,_ Mr. High and Mighty!" Tulio jabs a finger at him. "Even without all the eyeballs, you _still_ need to get some work done!"

"And what do you mean by that?"

"Walking corpse beats walking plague victim!"

"W-Well, _I never!"_

"Yes! Clearly you _never_ did anything beyond putting away all the wings and the eyeballs." Tulio proudly waves a hand at his hard-earned face. "This right here is a goddamned work of art."

"E-Excuse you!"

"No, excuse _you!"_

Like so many times before, they turn to the only other soul capable of settling this once and for all. Altivo blinks at both of them, thoroughly unimpressed, them slumps back down against the prow. Miguel yelps in alarm and grabs the bucket to cool him down. Tulio burrows deeper into his cloak and hunkers down to outlast the sun.

Tulio does indeed worry exactly the right amount. At the end of the day his partner is red as a boiled lobster.

"Miguel!"

Miguel pokes himself in fascination. He leaves behind a paler print that quickly flushes back to that angry red color. "Huh. That's new."

_"Miguel!"_

Tulio frantically throws a tarp over him. Then he winces. "It-It doesn't hurt, does it?"

Miguel squirms under the tarp, shaping himself a rough hood. He sheepishly pokes his head out. "N-No, it doesn't." The angel pauses, gnawing his lip. "Um, Tulio?"

"Yeah?" he croaks.

"I'm sorry for thinking you worried too much," he mumbles. "You worry exactly the right amount." Miguel's sunburn flushes deeper red. "A-And I'm sorry for implying your face still needed improvement. This is your face and I... I like that it's your face. Um, with or without skin. It's always been _you."_

Tulio shakily drags a hand down his face. Shrouded in funeral linens or shrouded deep in his hood, his skull has always been a bit too long in comparison to those that he's seen piled up in ossuaries or left to rot on a battlefield. "It's all I have," he mumbles. "I've just tried my damnedest to make it into something souls don't run screaming from the sight of."

He swallows as something else occurs to him. Eyes and wings aside, Miguel's face has remained constant in its familiarity. So many other Angels of Death individually tailor their guises for every soul they claim, wearing the shapes of loved ones or that soul's ideal of beauty. Tulio's gut churns at Miguel ever feeling compelled to rely on anything than his own honest face.

"And I'm sorry too," he blurts. "You're not a walking plague victim."

Miguel smiles wanly. "I _am_ a walking plague victim. It's the best I can do when mortal eyes will..." He grimaces, self-consciously tugging at the hem of his unnervingly dyed shirt. "Well, only _real_ angels get away with white."

Tulio's insides sink. "You _are_ an angel."

"A destroying angel."

With Miguel bundled inside the tarp, Tulio settles for throwing an arm over his shoulders best he can. "The first angel any of them will ever really see," he murmurs. "The angel that never gives up at trying to get them where they need to go. It's more than most deserve, and you never let me have one without a fight. And I'm just a walking skeleton."

Miguel nudges him, a hand worming out of the tarp to wind around his own. Tulio's breath hitches. "You're a shepherd, one brave enough to go up against angels, and steal souls from the brink of hell. Anyone that runs to you knows you really have what's best for them at heart and... and not just..." He sighs, shakes his head, and says no more.

Despite the breadth of their power still awaiting death's sweet release, a trace lingers still. Miguel's sunburn skin starts healing itself. By dusk he's faded to a rosy shade that's stubbornly slow to fade back into its normal sallow tone.

Tulio's lips quirk. "Careful," he teases. "Stay under the sun too long and you're gonna be stuck like that."

His partner laughs and tugs off the tarp. "A pink Angel of Death. At least I'll stand out from the crowd."

Tulio opens his mouth and almost points out that his partner better resembled a... Ah, well. It doesn't matter. At least this beautiful idiot won't ever roast himself like that again.

With more than enough drama for the do, they huddle against Altivo and settle in for the night. Their heating pad and pillow rolls his eyes, snorts, and silently chips another tiny part of that life debt he owes these two fools.

Tulio's come to realize how much he appreciates sleeping in. Usually he only rejoins the land of the living when Miguel's forgotten how to whisper, and has resumed talking to Altivo at his normal boisterous volume. Some lingering trace of paranoia or fragment of a nightmare makes Tulio blink awake in the dim pre-dawn light. He tries to raise a hand to rub his eyes... only he can't, because that's pinned under Miguel.

Miguel, his partner, draped over Tulio's bony chest and drooling into his cloak. The reaper stops breathing, then starts right back up again when the angel mumbles in protest.

H-How is that even comfortable?

Tulio patiently waits for his shock to kindle into mortification. Instead a strange, deep contentment settles in his bones. He shakily raises his free hand to run through Miguel's straw-like hair, before either he or the horse wake up. Even deep in slumber, Miguel's lip quirks up. With no one to see, Tulio beams right back.

As dawn creeps a little closer, the light allows Tulio to better see his partner's face. His smile falters at the strange shadow that persists on Miguel's jawline. He fearfully thinks of everything that can happen to a body left exposed under a ruthless sun. Is an Angel of Death close enough to...

Tulio brushes his thumb over that shadow, short and bristly. He slumps in relief. Then his lips pull into a smirk. "Miguel. Miguel, wake up."

"Hm?" Green eyes crack open, then fly wide open Miguel realizes exactly what he used as a pillow last night. "Um, I'm s-"

"Congratulations."

"W-What?"

"On being the first angel I've ever seen to successfully grow facial hair."

His partner blearily rubs at his jaw, his confused spluttering raising into indignity. Altivo's ears prick his way, then fall flat. He buries himself deeper into his tarp and stubbornly sleeps on. Miguel mounts into his usual tirade against overly opinionated artists giving people such narrow expectations of angels. Then he veers into cursing Cortes, the crew, and their lucky streak.

Miguel barely pauses. A being that can spend eternity singing hymns can rant just as long about how much this trip has sucked since leaving ho- _Spain_ behind. Tulio nods along in solidarity. His partner kills a good part of the morning. It's near noon when Altivo snorts loud enough to finally pause his rant.

Tulio clears his throat in the ensuing silence. "Well, I like it."

"Y-You like what?"

"Your stubble," he answers. It's still just a soft shadow on Miguel's face, a richer and deeper shade than his sallow hair. "But what matters is what _you_ like." An angel lives for flight, and Miguel is currently earthbound as Tulio's bony ass. The least he deserves is to feel as comfortable as he can in his own skin while his wings and all but two of his eyes sealed away.

Miguel scrubs a thoughtful hand over his chin. He sniffs. "Well, I suppose it has the potential to grow on me. If I can get enough to trim in a _dignified_ shape. I'm not facing the gates of heaven like some... some scruffy castaway!" A beat. "N-Not that you look like a scruffy castaway or anything. You... um, pull it off better than I do."

Tulio blinks, rubs at his own scratchy jaw, and goes cross-eyed from trying to glimpse it himself. "Huh. Neat."

Perfecting his face had been hard enough. It had taken him _decades_ for a thick head of hair, and not just the brittle wisps people expecting of walking, desiccated corpses. How nice his facial hair finally decided to catch on.

"Think I could pull off a beard?"

Miguel's enthusiasm dims. "Well..."

Tulio's just easing into another round of teasing when white wings break through the gray clouds overhead. He bundles himself in his cloak to better be a silent, stoic reaper. Miguel lurches away from him and plays the part of the good little angel, beatific despite being forced to share close quarters with death and a smelly ex-horse god. Altivo snorts and rolls his eyes.

An exhausted, ordinary seagull alights on an oar. It promptly coughs and keels over.

Miguel and Tulio blink at each other. "Was that you or m-"

A massive, black-eyed shark erupts from the deep, taking the seagull and the oar with it.

Altivo scooches into the center of the longboat. Two shaken embodiments of death huddle with him.

This apathetic, empty sea has never needed those like Tulio. It will swallow him carelessly as that seagull dropped dead, or that shark followed animal instinct. He knows this like he knows death has worn a thousand faces before his own, and will wear a thousand faces after his. No one needs _Tulio._

Unlike Miguel, he has no Father to ever save him from that abyss.

* * *

Time drifts. Miguel floats with it. Somewhere out in the sea he thinks he barely feels three galleons bobbing on the waves, their crews hearty and hail. To them he's out of sight and out of mind. Depths of his being once brimming with the Host now echo with his own lonely introspection.

He's never had time to sit down and _think_ before. His duties had always urged him onward since men were first driven out paradise, and his friendly rivalry with Tulio had spurred him faster still.

Altivo rations his supplies with martial discipline. He's still a large animal that burns through food and the fresh water they salvage from rain and morning dew. These days he droops over half the boat, without much energy to do much than snort or roll his eyes. Miguel worries for him.

But he also worries about other things too. When he has the strength to. Miguel once used to sleep just to pass the time. Now at night he and Tulio huddle close to Altivo's warmth. Then they drag themselves away from that stifling heat when the sun beats overhead. Aside from a few hours around dusk and dawn, between freezing winds and scorching light, they don't even have each other.

Miguel drifts in strange dreams, fragments of incense and brimstone. He dances with Tulio ahead of the the cities they've slain and leads those souls into bottomless dark.

Then his eyes snap open. Tulio groans, lolling against him. They keep each other upright.

"Tulio," he croaks for the first time that day.

Blue eyes crack open. The black stubble now fully framing his jawline would soften its angles, if the hollows in his cheeks and under his eyes did not gape wider than ever. Miguel doubts he looks much better. These days he's so numb his own scratchy beard doesn't bother him anymore.

"Y-Yeah, Miguel?"

Miguel licks his dry, dry lips. "Where... Where do you take souls?"

"Nowhere," his partner rasps, harsh and sharp. "I take them nowhere."

The angel bolts upright, ice lancing through his heart. "B-But-"

"Sometimes we run into others." Tulio grits his teeth. "Crows. A ship. Some jerk in winged sandals. My mare runs right to them and my souls just..." He waves a helpless hand _,_ voice wavering. "O-Other times we ride into darkness and... and then I'm just _alone_."

"Oh," Miguel breathes. "I'm so, so-"

Tulio snarls, his skeletal hand curling into a fist. "I take and I take and I _take,_ but nothing's ever mine to-"

"I've never been to heaven!"

"...W-W-What?"

Miguel's eyes dart away. His gaze falls on Altivo, whose ears are perked ramrod straight. So he takes a shuddering breath and turns back to his partner. "Just to the gates," he mumbles. "Same with hell." He shivers at the screams and singed flesh that drift up from its deepest depths. "Not that I actually want to see hell. I _deliver_ people from that type of pain. Why would I ever want to go where they all beg for me and I can't do anything to help?"

"You're an _angel."_

"An Angel of _Death_." Miguel tries to laugh, but the sound falls flat. "You think we're allowed any dominion among the righteous souls?"

"B-But you're..."

"I remember paradise," he murmurs, hazily thinking back to a garden of earthly delights. "Then mankind got itself kicked out, and my siblings and I were ordered after them. Never had a day off since." Miguel grimaces at their bleak surroundings. "Until, well, you know."

Tulio stops grasping at thin air. Instead his fingers weave around Miguel's. "Well, if it's consolation, Miguel... knowing you made me a little closer to paradise."

"And if it's any consolation, Tulio, I've... never felt alone. Not with you there."

Their weak chuckles break off into sobs, though neither quite knows why. Altivo rolls his eyes to high heaven. If Death is ready for death then so is he.

With the sun beating down his neck, Miguel's free hand instinctively reaches for succor.

Instead of water, golden sand runs through his fingers.

"Is-Is it?"

"It _is!"_

"It's-It's-"

"Land!" they whoop as one, new strength surging into their weary, unmoored limbs.

For all his wings remain unbound, Miguel flies from the longboat, and gives the beach his first worshipful kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gotta love when you want to write a chapter one way and then the characters start arguing about something else entirely. Because apparently any version of these boys I create somehow wind up vain and brimming with self-esteem issues :D
> 
> Miguel being unable to enter paradise is mostly inspired by a fable about a Hebrew scholar who managed to outwit an Angel of Death by demanding to be shown his place in paradise first, convincing the angel to give up his knife, and then yeeting himself over the wall. The Angel of Death can't pass into paradise himself, and has to rely on God to get the scholar to give up the knife, because the children of men must still die. Given the normally fearful to antagonistic views a lot of Abrahamic lore places on destroying angels, not quite demon and not quite conventionally holy, Miguel gets stuck in the middle ground. I'm sure he's fine there. Really.
> 
> In contrast to the centuries of rich lore built up around angels and Angels of Death, the Grim Reaper is less than 200 years old in 1519 (and technically not even Grim yet!) Tulio's even more out of his depths with where his pale mare and the subconscious urges of the souls he reaps.
> 
> Two unmoored embodiments of death, stranded in a paradise and with no one but each other and one very exasperated horse for company. And nothing on their schedules but free time to discover out here even Death can have layers to their wants and desires... much to Altivo's horror :D


	5. minds (and bodies) running wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death still has a destiny. They just decide to take the scenic route, one of beauty and self-discovery.
> 
> And poor Altivo is stuck for every last minute of it.

For one glorious moment, Miguel kisses kiss soft white sand and boundless possibility.

Then his lips brush brittle bone. Green eyes snap open to stare into empty eye sockets.

Altivo whinnies and skitters back. His companions have no such instinctive panic. Tulio's head cocks in morbid curiosity. Miguel scrubs his mouth with a sleeve. After weeks adrift at sea, he had almost forgotten the bitter taste of death.

"Oh," he mumbles.

The skeletons on the beach did not die easily. One must have stared his killer in the eye when that sword had stabbed deep into his chest. The other, fatally injured, had still tried to drag himself away. His fingers are still clenched in the sand. That had not stopped someone from cleaving a blade into his skull. At least it had ended his misery.

"D-Do you think this is why we washed up here?"

Tulio dispassionately taps at both skulls. "They're long gone now."

These mortals have long since passed the moments of their deaths, and are simply _dead._ Nothing remains but yellowed, empty bone. Their souls have gone elsewhere.

Miguel surveys their surroundings. Aquamarine waters lap at a pristine beach. There's a pile of rocks shaped remarkably like an eagle's head. Beyond the sand stretches an unbroken expanse of greenery. His wonder falls short with grim understanding. Two skeletons prove this land isn't uninhabited. The swords left in their bones, each with a skull adorning their hilt, stand as warning. There is something out here worth dying over.

_"Oh."_

Tulio arches a brow. "'Oh?'"

Miguel swallows. "W-We got here early."

Altivo's ears falls back. He stomps a hoof.

Tulio shrewdly appraises the beach as he must have once sized up the ports of Iberia when ships brimming with plague had limped into harbor. "Calm waters," he murmurs. "Sheltered bay." He fixates at the end of the beach, where the mouth of a wide river spills out into the sea. "An easy route inland."

For one moment, a third eye spasms open on Miguel's forehead, and he can almost, _almost_ see their parts in the grand design. He staggers from the weight of his wings.

"Miguel!" Tulio grabs his arm, swaying himself as his naked skull briefly grins through his human guise. He grimaces as the moment passes. "Ugh. We're _still_ stuck."

Miguel breathes in, the air sweet and heady. "We might be until one of the crew dies in this land."

The reaper furiously points at the skeletons. "Clearly people still die out here!"

Miguel smiles sadly. At times it seems he and Tulio have been partners forever. He often forgets his partner arrived only with the Black Death, and missed the contentious days when pagan gods still fought God for the souls of mankind. "Not our people, not our souls." A hum. "Not yet, anyway."

Like lodestones, they quietly shuffle their feet and reorient themselves. Somewhere in that jungle Cortes shall finally prove himself a conqueror. Miguel will have no shortage of souls to split with Tulio. The Black Death may seem a minor skirmish in comparison. Until then...

Tulio rolls his eyes out to the sea and ships that have yet to land. "Do you think they'll at least be relieved to realize we survived? Or will they just convince themselves we were never gone at all?"

Miguel purses his lips. He digs his toes into warm sand and lets a rebellious little whisper echo through depths of himself where the Host has fallen silent. "Why wait around here to find out?"

"...What?"

"Now that we know we aren't lost, don't you want to enjoy what time we have before we need to start working again? Not counting the boat, I haven't had a holiday since humanity got themselves out of paradise." Miguel enticingly spreads out his hands. "And here we are, right in the next best thing!"

"Can't we just enjoy ourselves right here? This beach beats that damned boat any day." Altivo snorts and jerks his head at two desecrated skeletons. Tulio grimaces. "Okay, horse, point taken. I am _not_ jinxing my time off. Even if it means watching someone put a sword through Cortes' head for trespassing. And then watching you drag him down to hell, Miguel." A beat. "On second thought..."

"Oh, come on!"

Tulio blinks, brow furrowing uncertainly. "What makes you think there's anything worth seeing out in that jungle? We don't even have a map."

"A map!" Miguel scoffs. "You feel where we need to be, don't you?"

Tulio's brow furrows deeper. He sighs. That tug on their hearts is undeniable. It's their destiny, their fate. Why not take the scenic route there?

"I..." Miguel's eyes widen in dread, lip quivering. Tulio crumbles immediately. "Sure, partner. Why not?"

"That's the spirit!" Miguel swings his partner into a crushing hug. It's easy when the reaper weighs next to nothing. Tulio splutters after him. "Come on, Tulio. We'll follow that trail!"

"What trail?"

The incessant tug on the cores of their being do not lead along a clear-cut path. Still lacking his own angelic blade, Miguel lifts the sword from the shattered skull and slashes it at the thick vines shrouding the trees. "The trail we blaze!"

His first attempt only reveals a boulder. But he gets it on his second try!

Altivo's ears fold back. He glances from the jungle to the ocean, weighing his odds. Cortes and the crew had made no attempt to rescue him when he had fallen aboard. An Angel of Death had unwittingly severed himself from the Heavenly Host to leap into the sea and desperately save a drowning horse. This idiot reaper never hesitated to do the same... if only for his unlikely partner, and not Altivo himself.

He chooses the lesser of two evils.

When Altivo truly realizes what is blossoming between these idiots, it's far too late to change his mind.

* * *

Their first day of freedom passes in a blur. After weeks trapped in a dingy too unable to even stand in, Altivo is eager to run. His companions can't keep up. Not when Miguel's wings are sealed away and Tulio's mare refuses her summons. Instead Altivo generously carries them both. He doesn't have the same pull to their destination that they do. Miguel guides him as best he can, down paths where his heart tugs hardest. Sitting behind him, Tulio gently gives pointers on how to best ride a horse, how to use his legs for balance and direction.

From horseback, Miguel marvels at how powerfully Altivo moves beneath him, the towering trees and vibrant flowers they pass. Tulio is a constant weight behind him, stubbly check tickling against his ear when he leans in to give advice.

When Altivo tires, they dismount to continue on foot. Miguel's smile seems glued to his face. He beams even wider at his partner. Tulio's face is usually shrouded in cynicism or, more recently, tight from stress after long weeks languishing at sea. With the reassurance this state is temporary Tulio is finally at peace, relishing his time off and no longer dreading some horrible oblivion.

Enclosed by the stone walls, they gape up at the stars shining overhead, and then the silver glow reflected on the canyon floor. It looks like a bird of prey in flight.

Tulio gawks. "And your old man made all this in a _week?"_

"Of course," Miguel answers at once. Tulio doesn't need to know can't quite see the Lord's hand in this yet. This part of creation must have gone overlooked by His angels since the very beginning.

Tulio's whistle breaks off in a yawn. "Why am I tired?" he grumbles. "Who needs sleep when there's finally things around to-"

Altivo's flicks his tail in his face. Very much dictated by needs of flesh and blood, the stallion wanders to the edge of the canyon, and the grass able to grow there. He tucks into dinner.

A memory of Eden flashes back to Miguel. He clamps down an excited smile. "Wait here."

"Why?"

"I need to see how close to paradise we actually are."

_"What?"_

Miguel darts to the treeline. Countless plants flourish under the canyon's open sunlight. He finds a tree heavy with pale oblong fruit. Nervously he runs his hand over a branch. The leaves don't wither. The bark doesn't peel off. Even when he picks a fruit to cradle, it remains ripe, and doesn't rot in his hold. Miguel blinks back tears. His face splits into a grin.

"Tulio! Tulio, look!"

Tulio blinks blearily up from the bed he's made in the grass. Miguel tosses his discovery at him. His partner yelps and catches it on instinct. Tulio automatically makes a look of disgust, before crumbling into confusion. He turns the fruit in his hands, over and over. Not so much as a brown spot appears.

Suspiciously he squints up at Miguel. "This isn't some immortal forbidden fruit or something, is it?"

"Don't be silly, Tulio! It's just an, um... well, Cortes or someone will give it a human name eventually. It's just fruit. Normal, ordinary fruit."

Tulio's eyes widen. "Y-You're saying we're that weak out here?"

Before his partner can drop the fruit, Miguel takes his hand, holding it firm to his palm. "I wasn't weak in paradise," he murmurs. "I just... hadn't realized my purpose yet. And the world hadn't either."

Here, when this land still does not know true death, Miguel might split that fruit open to reveal pulpy flesh, red and vibrant. His tongue fizzles with juice sour and floral. This time he cannot hold back joyful tears. He has not tasted life since Eden's trees bore their first fruits.

Without any such memories, Tulio tries a seed far more hesitantly. His expression goes slack. Right when he might spit it out, he swallows on accident. A dreamy smile splits his face.

Together they devour the fruit. Then they scramble for the tree.

A blissful eternity later, Miguel blinks at Tulio's loud, long groan of contentment and fully comes back to himself. They're sprawled under the tree, splattered in pieces of dried fruit and surrounded by shredded skins. Miguel scrubs at his beard to find it littered with seeds. He sheepishly glances over to Altivo. The stallion stares at them like they're a carriage crash, horrified and yet unable to look away.

"Um, sorry about our enthusiasm, old boy. It's just... been awhile."

"Speak for yourself. I'm the utter opposite of sorry." Tulio crosses his arms behind his head. "We should have jumped ship weeks ago."

Miguel allows himself a small, vindicated smile. "And you wanted to stay on the beach."

Blue eyes blink, then narrow and slide to their life. He conspiratorially loops an arm over Miguel's shoulder. "That rat's been following us since the beach."

Miguel follows his gaze. A brown creature that reminds him of a tortoise crossed with a hare shamelessly gorges on the remnants of their feast, knocked down from the tree and forgotten in their zeal to devour the rest. "He's not a rat, Tulio! He's just an, um... well, I'm sure someone will give him a name soon too."

"Why it is still here?"

"I... I don't know." Tulio holds him a little closer. Miguel bites his lip. "Has he really posed us any danger?"

His partner thinks it over. Their strange little shadow is a small one. Tulio grins. "Pft. Guess I do worry too much."

"Of course not." Miguel comfortably snuggles against the reaper's thick black cloak. "You worry exactly the right amount."

After the eager speed of their first day, their travels slow to a slightly more sedate pace. Breakfast and dinner fall into their routines. Altivo puts his hoof down for regular meal breaks. Long after he grazes his fill, Miguel and Tulio are still stuffing themselves on the newest fruit or edible plant discovered. Or woozily stumbling along from the latest bout of accidental food poisoning. How fortunate enough even at their weakest, death cannot die. Not with destiny so close.

Even with most of their strength locked away, the lingering shadow protects them. Tulio impatiently wades rivers and hops over treacherous stepping stones. Leeches drop off and wither the moment they latch onto his body. The fanged fish that leaps after his bony ass dies with its teeth still stubbornly lodged in his cloak. It fries up nicely. Slightly more intelligent predators sniff the air and avoid them entirely. They never discover spotted cats larger than leopards stalk this jungle, or that the shapes floating in the river are just pretending to be logs.

Every day holds a new surprise; a new favorite fruit, a rainstorm that rattles their teeth with its thunder, another natural wonder so vivid it almost looks crafted by human hands. The hot spring has to be the best yet. Altivo eases in to soothe his sore muscles. Miguel and Tulio race each other in. One leaves a trail of clothing behind him. The other rips off only a cloak stained from salt and sweat and gods know what else.

Altivo snorts and edges to one side of the pool. Tulio shamelessly uses the extra space to sprawl himself out.

"Oh, gods," he sighs. "Does this hit the spot."

For a while they simply bask in its warmth. Clouds of grime drift off. Stickiness from fruit and the grease in their hair more stubbornly remains. They obsessively scrub at their filth. His reflection in the pool is just clear enough for him to remember vanity. It's high time his scruffy, unruly beard was cut down to size.

Their only blade is the sword salvaged from the beach. Tulio holds it as steady as his scythe. He deftly shaves Miguel's cheeks and sideburns until only a patch remains around his chin and mouth.

Miguel puffs up in tentative bravado. "Well? How do I look?"

Tulio squeaks something unintelligible. Then he clears his throat. "Good! Er, I meant that you look good. And... And dignified a-and..."

"And?" his partner presses.

"Um... Y-You... I-I-I really should give myself a shave next, don't you think?"

"No!" Miguel gasps in horror.

"...No?"

Heat floods into Miguel's cheeks that can't be entirely blamed on the hot spring. His own facial hair had grown into a scruffy beard. Tulio's stubble has darkened on his chin and sideburns, but mostly remains a light shadow to his jawline.

"I think you look roguish like this," he blurts. "B-Beguiling, even."

Blue eyes widen, vulnerable in a way Miguel has never seen before. For a terrible moment he fears he's crossed a line. Before he can apologize, Tulio's lip quirks up. "Oh, well, go on." Altivo rolls his eyes and rises from the pool, shaking water everywhere. He flounces off. Tulio shakes a fist after him. "No one asked you, horse!"

Miguel's eyes rivet to his form. This is first time in ages when Tulio has been entirely uncloaked. Miguel cannot count his vertebrae so easily and his collarbone does not jut out as far than it last did. Stubble is not the only thing softening his jawline. He moves lighter than he did before, and does not smile so painfully wide.

"Dashing," Miguel continues. "Compelling. H... Oh."

"Oh? What do you mean-"

Entranced, Miguel leans over, twining a hand into his hair.

"Oh," Tulio squeaks out, in the very short space between them.

Thoroughly washed for the first time ever, Tulio's limp black hair has gained an intriguing hair wave. Miguel curls a strand around his finger. Even wet, the curl holds.

"That's new." Spluttering indignantly under his touch, red floods into Tulio's corpse-pale cheeks. "So is that."

"Y-You..."

Tulio glances upward and flushes even redder. Miguel follows his gaze. In the branches above hang a troop of voyeuristic monkeys. Whatever strange sensation was mounting between them wilts. They scramble for coverage. Miguel eagerly dresses, for all he has come to hate the disgusting colors of his clothes. Tulio grumpily shrouds himself.

Bundled deep in his cloak, Tulio remains stubbornly warm when they mount Altivo long after they leave the hot spring behind. It's like the heat has seeped into his bones. Inside Miguel the fire seems to have taken up residence in his cheeks. They flare even hotter when he and Tulio awkwardly catch each other's eyes that evening. For the first time in weeks Miguel eats a light dinner. His stomach feels too fluttery for its usual gluttony.

Despite the strange little fire seething inside him, Miguel shivers when the sun sets. He and Tulio huddle together that night to share each other's warmth. Altivo, their usual heat source, pointedly lays down the other side of the fire.

Miguel wakes the next morning to warm fingers carding through his hair. He drowsily leans into it.

"It's soft," Tulio mumbles.

Miguel cracks an eye open. He marvels at the loose black ringlets spilling out of his partner's hood. "Yours is curly."

"Handsome," Tulio blurts. "I think you look handsome with the beard." He flushes. "N-Not that you weren't before! You were, um, angelic... in the traditional sense, because you're... y'know. But now it's a... gallant sort of handsome."

"So are you," Miguel counters. "In a roguish sort of way."

Altivo groans long and hard. They blink at him. The stallion ignores them both to rise to his hooves and prance into the undergrowth.

Tulio scoffs. "What's his problem?"

Miguel shrugs.

His partner pushes back his hood. He pushes back wisps of hair. Miguel's fingers itch to touch that silky cascade. Instead Tulio gathers it up in one hand. He pauses. After a moment, he ties his back looser than its usual stranglehold. His ponytail is low and relaxed. A few strands escape to frame his face.

"Well?" he prompts. "This roguish enough for you?"

Miguel stares long and hard. A strange sound bubbles up inside him. Tulio gapes. Miguel, flushing even redder, clears his throat.

"Yes," he answers hoarsely. "Very nice."

An awkward pause hangs over them. Tulio amps up his bravado. "Nice enough to tempt some more souls from you?"

"I-I thought you said I was handsome too!"

"In the classical sort of way. This face?" He proudly gestures at himself, cocky smirk and cheekbones no longer so prominent. "This face has _allure."_

"You... You suave, pompous scoundrel!"

"You mincing, beautiful twit!"

Their bickering falls into familiar, comforting rhythm. They rise from their sleeping spot to locate a proper breakfast.

Altivo gives them the stink eye the rest of the day. Poor boy must have had a rough morning. Miguel does try to apologize for waking him up.

The horse only gives him a long, knowing stare.

* * *

Altivo has never been a prophetic god. He is also an old, _old_ horse. His first herds grazed beside furry titans and his visage painted on cave walls. He's outlasted too many solar gods to know there is nothing new under the sun.

Even if he was a newborn foal, he could still damn well see what would happen to two personifications of death liberated from modern Spain's rigid ideas of dying and all that comes after. The odd partnership built up around the constraints of their duties grows wild without them. Altivo endures blushing, wide grins, and idiots running into trees when they glimpse each other from tempting new idiots.

Cuddling and hair stroking are only the top of a slippery slope. Because of course it is. Some force out there wants to make Altivo _suffer_ for not drowning when he should have.

Their strange little shadow, a powerful spirit _at the very least,_ drinks up every last bit of melodrama. He watches the idiots dance around their feelings with wide, fixated eyes. He clasps his little paws and bites back excited squeals every time one partner blushes at the other blushing. Then he smugly nudges Altivo like they're somehow accomplices in this stupidity.

The unwitting courtship is painful enough to endure. Altivo dreads the inevitable breakup even more. This story cannot end another way. Not when Miguel's regret and self-loathing finally rear their ugly heads. Even an Angel of Death has to have some sense of the rigid orthodoxy Christian Spain's been preaching since the start of Reconquista.

When the fateful day comes, Altivo damn well knows it. Their hair is mussed and clothes rumpled. Miguel skips like gravity can no longer hold him down. Tulio struts with a new swagger that promises to become ingrained into his burgeoning sense of self. Across the fire, they shyly wave at each other and exchange lovesick glances. The little spirit all but applauds them.

They also reek of sex. A stallion's keen nose misses nothing.

_Nothing._

There are no horrified realizations, no weeping or hurled accusations. Instead Altivo suffers two death spirits drunk on hormones. They slink off under of darkness and in broad daylight. Their excuses grow flimsier. They have to scout ahead or go foraging or consult the map. They don't even have a map!

Altivo goes nose blind. And selectively deaf. Those idiots rarely sneak off far enough.

Worst of all, the storm brewing on the horizon grows darker with each day it refuses to break. Every step brings them closer to a fate that draws in death like moths to the flame.

He and Miguel are light sleepers. One morning they both stir awake at the same time. Tulio snores obliviously onward. Across the ashes of the fire, green eyes lock with Altivo's. The angel's soft smile falls from his face. Together they steal away from camp and leave the reaper to dream.

Out of Tulio's earshot, Miguel crosses his arms and leans against a tree. He doesn't even face Altivo. "There's no commandments against it, you know," he says petulantly. "Tulio's not _human._ And the Host can't hear one word of it. What they don't know can't hurt them."

Altivo does not stop or stomp a hoof. He stares long and hard at the angel's back.

Miguel's shoulders hunch. "I know," he rasps, with the bone-deep certainty that this too must die. "I _know."_

Altivo nickers in sympathy and dares a step closer.

The angel trembles. "I have my... duties. And Tulio has his. We haven't forgotten that. In no time we'll both be so busy that we... we won't ever..." His voice cracks. "C-Can I enjoy this while we have it? Is that too much to ask?"

Altivo gently nudges his shoulder. Miguel whirls to throw his arms around his neck. The stallion glares sharply around the clearing, but their shadow has finally made himself scarce. There are no eavesdroppers for what comes next. The hot tears wept into Altivo's mane are his secret to keep.

And keep it he will. Altivo hasn't spoken one human word for over eleven hundred years and counting.

Eventually the jungle fills with Tulio's anxious calls for his partner. Miguel wipes at his puffy eyes. He locks his grief behind a mask of ineffable cheer. With a murmured word of gratitude to Altivo, he smooths out the last waver in his voice, and strides out to embrace every last moment of ephemeral happiness.

Altivo hangs back. His ears fold back when their armored shadow manifests from the undergrowth. This guardian spirit knows damn well death hones in on his people.

Gaze shrewd and impassive, the herald peers up at him. Then he scampers after his main source of entertainment.

Star-crossed lovers doomed to tragedy are fodder for any pantheon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of all the song lyrics I could have chosen for this chapter, it could damn well have been 'virgin vistas undefiled' XD Thank your lucky stars I chose euphemism over irony.
> 
> 1519 Spain was rather rigid in its official religion and relationship with life and death. What happens when death gets loosed from those constraints... hedonism. Shameless, naked hedonism :D
> 
> The fruit our idiots glut themselves on is modeled after banana passionfruit (also known as the taxo or the curuba.) Or might just be a species of banana passionfruit. Manoa is... geographically ambiguous ; )


	6. some day (out of the blue)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miguel sucks at communication.
> 
> Tulio sucks slightly less at it.
> 
> Fortunately for the thief running for her life, they also happen to suck at their jobs.

Tulio now knows himself to be a late and heavy sleeper.

The day destiny bears down like a sword over his head, he startles awake just before dawn, soaked in sweat and heart racing. For a moment he fears still himself hallucinating on the boat, lapsing back into delirium. He can fade away or be swallowed by the sea without no one ever missing him. His skeletal form seeped up from human fears to grant them a face for death. Their minds can spew a thousand more long after they forget him.

Beside him, Miguel stirs in uneasy dreams. They're snug under Tulio's cloak. His warmth is very real.

So are his whimpers.

Tulio's heart jumps to his throat. He combs his fingers through Miguel's soft, sallow hair. His partner's whimpers peter out. His breathing steadies.

Miguel slumbers on. Tulio never stops stroking. By now the motion is cathartic, like the habitual toss of his dice. Altivo eventually rises up from his bed of grass. Without looking their way he wanders into the misty morning to graze his fill.

Once Tulio's touch brought mortals into their eternal rest. Now he can barely buy Miguel an extra hour of blissful oblivion. The angel whines and buries into his warmth, away from the frigid morning. His eyelids flutter.

"I know, Miguel," Tulio murmurs. "I know."

Green eyes crack open. Tulio has seen them wide with wonder and sparkle with unbridled joy. Now their sorrow is deep enough to drown in.

Tulio keeps stroking.

Miguel leans into his touch. "It's nice," he mumbles. "Even better than usual."

"It was your idea to begin with. Back on the boat." Tulio swallows at the memory, that brave display of intimacy when almost all barriers had still been up between them. "H-How'd you even know it would help me feel better?"

"I do it with my dead sometimes," his partner admits. "The ch... the ones who can't stop crying. Who think they had so much more time than they did. Sometimes it helps." Miguel flushes. His wan cheeks flood with color. "It-It's the closest I can get to preening them. O-Or you."

"Because we don't have wings?"

Miguel sheepishly nods. Tulio snorts. He imagines Miguel in all his terrible glory, preening his fellow Angels of Death and cooing gossip with them like a flock of doves. His smile is quick to fall. Tulio gingerly avoids Miguel's stoic, diligent siblings. He can't recall his partner exchanging anything more than a simple prayer or curt nod to them.

"Do you do that a lot?" Tulio asks. "With your brothers and sisters?"

"We used to. Back when... when we were still getting used to our roles."

Now Tulio imagines those Angels of Death fresh from paradise, human souls still scarce and memories of life still vivid on their tongues. Preening their siblings must have offered tenderness and comfort. Everything else on earth would have withered under their touch. And not a single voice in those heavenly choirs had lowered themselves to visit the youngest and most ostracized of their family.

It's still more than Tulio ever had. His big brothers are Pestilence, War, and Famine. They rode into the world sometime after the fall from paradise and will one day ride to end it forever. They had never shared song or joy or grief.

Tulio shivers. He wonders if an increase of dying mortals had deprived the destroying angels of any personal time. He wonders if their senses had eventually gone so numb they could no longer take comfort in each other.

He bites his tongue. Rather than ask Miguel how much of... _this_ will die with the return of their dominion, Tulio instead leans in to kiss the crook of his neck. "Come on, partner. Let's go see what all the fuss will be about."

Miguel mutinously huddles deeper into his cloak. "What's the rush?" he sniffs. "We're still ahead of schedule."

Tulio peers out into the heavy mist. Somewhere nearby is the first settlement of many Cortes' army will glut themselves upon. From the tug on his heart, it's a not humble village, but a city brimming with lives for the taking. "Really? I would've thought that..."

"What?" his partner breaks in. "I've taken lives from Tyre to Cadiz. You've harvested a thousand cities, you've harvested them all. What's one more city to ignore us... o-or not even see us until it's their time to die? How is that any different from the ship we left behind?"

Tulio nestles into Miguel's shoulder and ponders a strange, nebulous desire more complex than simple lust or hunger. He recalls Miguel's wistful smile for those gamblers in Seville, his earnest attempts to blend in with the crew. Their songs had all died whenever a destroying angel had dared lend his voice. Mass that should have uplifted a messenger of the Lord had always left him in despair afterward.

Before the beach, Tulio had always rolled his eyes at his partner's sentimentality. Now he too has tasted enough to want as much as he can grab.

...At least until it once more withers in his touch, and equilibrium reasserts itself.

"I want you to want... what you want."

"W-What?"

Tulio flushes. "I want to see you smile at a human city like the way I've seen you smile at fruit or thunderstorms or... or even the stupid little armored rat."

 _I want one day will humanity will just pleasantly ignore me, and not be fucking terrified to look me in the eye,_ he adds secretly. Even now some truths refuse to crawl out of his throat. After all, Tulio is not like Miguel. He was never a being created from song and grace. His skeletal form galloped out of the abyss to drag souls down with him. Why should a reaper crave anything more beyond a bountiful harvest?

Miguel sags against him. "Well, if that's what you want."

"Me too," he croaks.

"Okay." Miguel's face breaks into a smile more sickly than his complexion. "For all we know, we're about to see El Dorado."

Tulio snorts.

They say no more on the subject. Miguel rolls out of their makeshift blanket to pull on his foul-colored shirt and adjust his clothes. Tulio drapes himself in his cloak but leaves his hood down.

With supernatural timing, Altivo ghosts out of the fog. Tulio mounts and offers Miguel a helping hand astride. Their journey might pass quicker, but horseback gives Miguel the perfect excuse for them to huddle together. The stallion is nothing like Tulio's pale, bony mare. Altivo is a powerful animal, broad with strength and vigor. He trots smooth as water into the murky morning.

Despite the horrid visibility, Tulio never falters. He knows the road down to his bones.

* * *

The road is clear. The road is straight.

In front of some stone statue in the middle of nowhere, the pull on his heart twists itself into knots. Tulio spins Altivo in dizzying circles. Then he lets go of his mane to rub at his aching temples.

"I-I don't understand," Miguel murmurs. "There's... There's nothing-"

"A rock," Tulio snarls. "Apparently some idiots are going to slaughter each other over some... some... great... _big... R-"_

Ice pools in his rib cage. It chills his headache, hot and throbbing. Clarity cuts sharp as his scythe.

"N-No," Miguel chokes out. "No. W-We still have-"

Destiny does not care. She has found them all the same.

Tulio, once aware of every choking cough and burning fever in his domain, resonates with the one soul that matters in this world. She blindly runs right for them. One slip on this slippery stone might crack her skull right open. The river might steal her away...

If she does not give herself to it. Her weary limbs cannot carry her forever. When she collapses, her choices are the current, or the men who intend to drag her back alive.

They will never take her, not now and not ever.

Miguel trembles in denial. He clings to Tulio's torso. Altivo prances beneath them, torn by the conflicting pulls of his riders. Death never falters. The reaper dons his hood to shroud whatever expression his face might betray. He sits rigidly astride his mount. His scythe glints out of the corner of his eye, almost a solid weight in his-

A solid weight slams head-on into Altivo's chest. The stallion rears, furiously bugling down at his assailant. Tulio's hands wrench at his mane for balance. His hood goes flying off. Miguel would have done if the same if he didn't hold on so tight.

A mortal woman lays sprawled on her back, chest heaving. She gapes up like a rabbit about to be torn apart by the hounds.

Altivo stops snorting to stare down at her in wonder. His passengers do the same. One is an Angel of Death without his wings and robes, almost as terrified of the mortal as she is of him. The other is a very disgruntled reaper in a travel-stained cloak. What a dignified sight they make.

Their victim's eyes widen in understanding.

There are no tears. There is no pleading. Her breathing slows down. She stares in grim, unblinking resignation.

Miguel stops trembling. He presses no claim. Tulio sighs and ignores his scythe. He offers only a gentle hand. The warriors are almost upon them.

The woman's eyes blaze, then race with frantic calculations he has seen countless times before and will see countless times again. He patiently awaits her to reach the conclusion all the others have.

Before she does, her pursuers round the statue. Altivo, unlike Tulio's impassive pale mare, is mortal enough to die. The stallion rears back. His flailing hooves keep a safe distance between those spear tips and his soft belly. He trumpets down.

Miguel and Tulio cling to his back for dignity's sake. Death does not get thrown from startled horses. Especially when those armed warriors stop gawking at Altivo to stare at _them._ Tulio's neck prickles. Despite the cloak he almost feels naked.

All gazes drift down to a thief caught red-handed. With a glance at the warriors, she hurls her stolen bundle.

Tulio catches it on instinct. For a heartbeat he blinks at its surprising weight. Then he sneers and throws it back to her. Who does she think he is, some two-bit faerie? Death can't be swayed by _bribes._ He's turned down kingdoms and firstborn children.

The thief offers it again. And again. The guards watch their exchange, more bewildered by the minute. Their spears never lower.

Once more rejecting shameless bribery, Tulio disdainfully stares down the mere mortals that dare raise their weapons at death. He angles his face just so the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, even softened by weeks of gluttony, better show in the dark. Miguel's confusion hardens into stoic disapproval. It's the face he wears as he drags weeping, begging souls down to the gates of hell. Sweat beads on the warriors' brows. Their bodies quake.

A blunt object bounces off Tulio's head. His cold mask crumbles as he splutters down at the thief. She pouts right back.

The stalemate ends when the lead warrior, with a scar over one eye and the pelt of a spotted cat draped over his shoulders, lowers his spear. His men immediately obey. When he bows his head, they sink into deeper bows. He waves his hand in clear invitation.

Tulio and Miguel blink at each other, trying to remember the last time either of them was let into a city so willingly. They shrug and urge Altivo onward. Rolling his eyes, the stallion grudgingly complies.

Several warriors try to apprehend the thief. She clutches tighter to her bundle and presses close to Altivo. No one else dares approach.

If her shoulder so much as brushes Tulio's leg, she might drop dead right then and there.

Instead she gingerly avoids all contact with Altivo's riders when they pass under the roaring waterfall and into the cavern beyond. Tulio and Miguel dismount to sit together by the prow. The horse awkwardly squeezes himself into the back. The thief sits in front of him, drawing up her knees to create even more space between herself and her death. Most warriors pile into the second boat. One unlucky soul gets stuck piloting the boat with death incarnate.

They drift into darkness. Two embodiments of death and the mortal they nearly reaped gawk at each other. Then Tulio turns his attention to their surroundings. He marvels at massive pillars holding the cavern aloft and intricately carved stone heads. For a moment he wonders if they drifted out of the mortal world and into another plane entirely. Tulio squints curiously into the cavern. Only the abyssal dark stares back.

When a glimmer of light finally peaks in, the bundle in the thief's lap glints gold. She hastily covers her prize back in crude brown cloth.

As one, Miguel and Tulio turn to gape at the warm afternoon sunlight spilling into the cavern. From darkness they are delivered into a verdant lake. On every shore shine golden pyramids tall as artificial mountains. Tulio blinks back tears.

"Paradise," he whispers, while at the same time his partner murmurs, "El Dorado."

He wonders what the difference is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know what surprised me when writing this chapter? Miguel, usually the wide-eyed idealist, has been so harshly rebuffed by humanity in this life that he's retreated far into his shell. Tulio, in contrast, spent his first 200 years of existence cynical on the surface but so largely numb to everything he's actually very new to wanting anything beyond Miguel's company and more souls to reap... and very open (though somewhat ineffectual) at stating what he wants. While the opposite is true to some extent or another in all other universes I've written. Boy oh boy, the irony's strong here :D
> 
> ...And then there is Chel, who will face death with dignity only after she yeets a stolen idol at them twenty times.


	7. your public's waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death accidentally flails into divinity. 
> 
> And existential crises. ...Lots and lots of existential crises. 
> 
> Mostly relating to their stupid, sexy priestess.

Death is invisible until the moment of its arrival. Sometimes it strikes without warning. Tulio has reaped countless souls that had not realized their deaths until blinking down at their lifeless bodies. Even when plague-ridden bodies had piled up on the streets, mortal eyes had still been blind to his presence, and the thunder of his pale mare's hooves. Humans have a way of ignoring their own inevitable demise.

Now every eye turns his way. Smiles slacken. Women drop their pots and children cling to their mothers' skirts. Tulio's awe for this golden paradise curdles. He huddles into his robe, feeling naked despite it. He's never been so... _seen._

Blue eyes cynically glance up at the ominously smoking volcano. A natural disaster is as good a mass casualty event as any. It is certainly more merciful than what Cortes might give them.

Miguel gapes at golden butterflies and down at the massive, vibrant fish in the lake below. He drinks in the splendid architecture. Too late does he notice the expressions of the people. His wonder slips into uncertainty. It might be the last time Tulio ever sees him makes that smile, wide and unhindered by their burden. He regrets the stupid, selfish impulse that maybe, just for one day, they could walk among mortals without duty finding them.

Before Tulio can apologize, the boats dock. The head warrior immediately stalks into the crowd. He runs up the steps of a dark building carved with skulls and fearsome beasts. A man with a messenger's lithe build darts off in the opposite direction. Tulio shares a wary glance with Miguel.

Altivo snorts and leaps out of their boat. Miguel instinctively clambers onto his back. There's safety in numbers, in being a few feet above a crowd that sees far too much. Tulio expectantly scans the sea of faces for his pale mare. Instead his partner reaches down to grab him by the arm. Tulio lets himself get pulled astride Altivo. People scramble back to make a path for them. The thief plasters herself to Altivo's hindquarters, beyond Tulio's reach. Smart woman.

Two aspects of death anxiously eye their audience. The people stare right back. Some are men who uneasily raise their spears and shields. Aside from a few muted murmurings, a breathless silence hangs over them.

"Ah," he sighs in grim acceptance. "Well, partner, peace was nice while it lasted. I'm sorry for cutting it short."

"Tulio, I just want you to know... I'm sorry about that girl in Barcelona."

Tulio's brow furrows over a long, _long_ list of lives reaped under an angel's nose, and the souls stolen in turn. " _Which_ girl in Barcelona?"

"Y-You-"

"Behold!" They blink up at the man who imperiously stands upon the temple steps with a force of armed warriors at his back. "As the prophecies foretold, the time of judgement is now!"

A second man, grim-faced and regal, strides out to his side. The first only puffs up in satisfaction, a faithful believer proven right at last.

Ah. Last Judgement time it is then, even if he's a few horsemen ahead of schedule. Miguel instead sucks in a breath to vehemently protest this.

"Citizens, did I not predict that the gods would come to us?"

Tulio glances behind him for the vengeful deities in question. He looks to the left and right, even down to the bemused armored rat sitting at Altivo's hooves. He blinks at a horse who rolls his eyes to high heaven. Finally he and his partner turn to each other. The color drains from Miguel's wan face. He splutters unintelligibly.

Tulio blinks down in bemusement when the man sweeps down from the steps to bow before them. "My lords, I am Tzekel-Kan, your devoted high priest and speaker for the gods."

"Hey," Tulio blurts out on instinct. He waves at the first and only mortal not on the verge of death to greet him with enthusiasm. His other hand discreetly jabs Miguel in the side to preemptively end his rant about conflating messengers with real divinity.

Instead he prompts an angel to smile and nervously wave back at the pagan who confused him for an actual god. Because Miguel's too polite to interrupt such civility... or too stunned at accidentally breaking the most sacred commandment to properly defend himself.

"I am Chief Tannabok," the kingly man offers. "What names may we call you?"

"Huh? I... I'm Miguel."

_God dammit, Miguel! **Again?**_

Even Altivo cringes at stupidly tormenting fate. If the actual archangel isn't watching his little brother Fall ass backward into sin yet, then he certainly might be now! Only decades of rigid stoicism prevents Tulio from dragging a hand down his face. To salvage the situation he introduces himself as grandly as he can. "And I am Tulio."

Miguel slides off Altivo. His foot snags in his reins. He grandly throws out out his arms to compensate for his current lack of wings. "And they call us... um, Miguel and Tulio!"

Tulio's eyes bulge a little further. Really, were 'Herald' and 'Reaper' that hard to come up with?

Only, instead of their names, Miguel declares them to be called _Who Is Like God_ and _He of the People._ Only then does Tulio realize they've lapsed out of the Iberian languages entirely and into something entirely.

"Your arrival has been greatly anticipated," Chief Tannabok offers diplomatically. "My lords, how long will you be staying in Manoa?"

Tzekel-Kan fixates on something else entirely. A fierce smile splits his face as he drags the woman responsible for this out from behind Altivo. "Aha! I see you have captured this temple-robbing thief. How would you have us punish her?"

Tulio freezes. He's not some... demon or avenging angel. He's just death. Apathetic, indiscriminate death.

Having already look him once in the eye today, the thief grimaces and clutches her own neck. "Oh, no! No no no! See, the gods sent me a vision to... bring them tribute from the temple to guide them here." Tulio glances at Miguel, stoic as ever in the case of a mortal pleading their case. He turns up his own nose in solidarity. "My only wish is to serve the gods."

She turns from the high priest to them, expression shifting from submission into outright desperation. Among those present, two aspects of death are not those she fears most. Tzekel-Kan never loosens his hold. Instead he sharply looks their way for approval.

Tulio's gut churns. Icy dread grips his bones. Miguel's impassive facade cracks. His brows furrow, eyes softening. A reaper collects souls only when they're due to be harvested. An Angel of Death delivers a sentence ordered from on high. Their time to take this thief today has come and gone. The warriors no longer want her dead. If Tzekel-Kan still does, then...

"Release her, don't you think?"

An order softened into a request, a choice subtly pushed back into mortal hands. Tulio breathes a little easier.

Wonder dawns on the thief's face. Tzekel-Kan drops her as if burned, never once realizing he had the chance to debate that. She cowers when he shoves the stolen idol into her hands and all but sneers for her to return it to its rightful place. Yet, even when he disdainfully shoves her from their presence, a grateful smile blossoms on her face. The ice still lingering in Tulio's bones melt with it.

"My lords," Chief Tannabok asks warmly, "why now do you choose to visit us?"

Tulio's mind goes blank.

"Enough!" Tzekel-Kan snarls. "You do not question... the gods!"

Miguel flushes. His left eyelid twitches from the force of the outburst he holds back.

"That's right," Tulio concurs. "We visit when we visit, and not one moment later... o-or a few days before when we're supposed to visit."

Tzekel-Kan's smile widens. Chief Tannabok uncertainly glances over his people. For a heartbeat he finds the courage to look death in the eye, and falters at the ineffable truth in those depths. He bows in surrender.

"O, undeniable lords," the high priest effuses, sweeping into a bow of his own. "Come. Let me show to your temple."

Tulio grins down at his partner. "All right. Temple."

To outsiders, Miguel might have reset into unsettling neutrality. Tulio knows the cracks in his masks to know the angel delighted as he is and also about to spontaneously combust from mortification. They both inspect the imposing temple of black brick and carved skulls. Tzekel-Kan instead leads them to the steps of the tallest building in the city, vibrant red and gold. Chief Tannabok briefly blocks his way, but steps aside when he glances over the priest's shoulder to those looming behind him.

As the magnificent view beneath him unfurls, Tulio whistles in appreciation. Usually he meets people at the bottom of their falls. "So this is the angel's eye view, huh?"

Miguel glances dully over his shoulder. He pauses, a wistful smile shining through his gloom. "Yeah." A scowl. "Or _god's_ eye view."

"I neither confirmed nor denied that," Tulio points out. He jerks a thumb at the mortals continuing their climb to the peak, both unaware they are no longer followed. "You're more than welcome to enlighten them."

Miguel grimaces. "For better or worse, that's, um... out of my purview. Way, way out."

"You're an _angel."_

"Angel _of Death,"_ he emphasizes, glancing sheepishly back at the priest that has proclaimed him so much otherwise. "The only message I bring is the... the final one. Humans have every chance to seek out the Lord before I come. By then it's... it's too late for knowledge, too late for change. A-And we're not even supposed to be here yet! These people aren't even-"

Tzekel-Kan and Chief Tannabok have almost reached the temple peak. Tulio grabs Miguel's wrist and hustles after then. They turn to discover their 'gods' poised and dignified. Altivo, sweating and out of breath, collapses a few steps out of view. Yet another reason it sucks to be that close to mortal.

Manoa's chief and high priest open curtains and bow before them. Both instinctively shiver when death breezes past.

Tulio is a bold and cunning thief. He also has the common sense to avoid houses of God at all cost. Stealing a life under Miguel's nose is one thing. Sacred ground invites _heavenly_ suspicion. And Tulio doesn't need any burning spears shoved down his throat by Miguel's scary, _scary_ older brothers.

This temple, _their_ temple, does not echo with the deafening echoes of prayer or heavenly hosts. Tulio hears only expectant silence, empty spaces long waiting to be filled. It's... comfortable. He ignores the reflection pool and luxurious couches to rest his hand against one gilded column. The stone feels warm as a hearth.

Miguel lingers on the threshold. His eyes widen in awe. Then he tries and fails to look unimpressed. He still creeps deeper inside the temple. It welcomes him no less enthusiastically.

Tzekel-Kan is not yet done. "To commemorate your arrival, I propose a reverent ceremony at dawn."

Chief Tannabok pushes his way forward. "Ah, then perhaps I could prepare a glorious feast for you tonight?"

"Which would you prefer?"

Tulio's easy smile falters. He draws his hand away from the column. Uneasily he remembers _generous_ offers by souls eager to delay their reaping, feasts and prayers and everything else they thought might spare them a few hours more. No one's ever tried to _deify_ him in a con before, but it's been quite some time since a whole damned city was on his list. And apparently it takes a con that large to sucker him into it.

He exchanges a cold look with his partner. Angels of Death are no less unmoved. Souls that try to play upon their nonexistent mercy are dragged down to hell regardless.

Then someone's stomach rumbles. After weeks of shameless gluttony, their bodies don't quite remember they're supposed to be implacable agents of death. They haven't eaten since this morning.

"Both," Miguel blurts out.

Blue eyes narrow. "Both?"

For a heartbeat, Miguel's mask falls, and all his naked hungers laid bare. His mouth parts, his eyes widen. A glorious feast before food rots on their tongues. A _ceremony_ in their name before these people ever realize and regret what they have willingly welcomed into their most sacred of temples. Tulio's resolve crumbles.

"Both," they agree as one. "Both is good."

Tzekel-Kan and Chief Tannabok bow and depart. With no one left to posture for, Tulio collapses into a chair... throne. _His_ throne. Miguel falls into his lap.

"Gods," he croaks. "Oh, God."

Tulio searches for a positive side. "Well, from a certain point of view, we're actually more powerful than-"

"Don't you say it," Miguel mumbles into his chest. "Don't you dare."

"Hey, I'm going by the pagan definition for-" Altivo snorts. Tulio rolls his eyes. "Considering how we all got here in the first place, I really don't think you're one to talk."

The stallion stomps his hoof and gestures to the headless idol situated between their thrones. They blink down at it, then at the thief awkwardly loitering on the threshold with her stolen tribute in hand. Miguel gasps and leaps off his lap. Then he clears his throat and assumes a dignified pose. Tulio sits up straighter in his throne. Here is the mortal indirectly responsible for this misunderstanding, one who had saved herself from death by running into a reaper and throwing a stolen head at him enough times.

"Hello," she says.

Tulio's mind blanks.

"...Hey," he he blurts back. Miguel manages a wave.

She holds up her tribute. "Forgive the intrusion, my lords. I'm here returning this to its rightful place, just as you ordered."

Miguel imperiously tilts up his chin. "Quite right. Carry on, mortal."

He inches back toward the opposite throne. She fearlessly strides between them to reunite the head with its body. Her gaze flickers between them both.

"Thank you."

Tulio's jaw drops. A wordless sound squeaks out of him.

"For saving my life," the thief elaborates. "When you could've... you know."

"It-It was nothing," Miguel assures. "Really. Sometimes it just... happens."

Free will makes humans unpredictable. On rare days, Tulio swings his scythe, and comes a hairsbreadth short. Miguel's bitter sword goes unseen. A quick-thinking passerby might snatch a pedestrian from the path of a rampaging carriage. A drunkard might sag against a wall rather than stumble over a bridge into the river below. An Angel of Death breathes a prayer for a soul granted another chance. A reaper grumbles at yet another one who gets away.

...For now. Fate deferred is never fate denied. Tulio will find her again, days or weeks or decades from now. The human condition is a terminal one.

Always.

The thief cocks a brow. "Going along with my lie doesn't 'just happen.'" She flinches, then grits out, "Especially when... when you of course had every right to leave me to Tzekel-Kan's punishment, my lords. Or claim me for yourselves."

Tulio crosses his arms. "I'll claim you when it's your time to be claimed, and not one moment earlier."

Tulio is a liar and a cheat. He will gleefully talk souls away from Miguel's arms and into a rigged game of dice. He has never reaped a life before its destined time, no matter how close to the limit, or small an advantage over his partner it may have been. Not now, and not ever.

"But not today," she chirps. "And that's good enough for me." She drops into a little bow, biting back a smile. "Of course, my lords, I certainly won't protest when my time _actually_ comes."

"Oh, really?" Tulio drawls. "Sure that day won't involve you pelting more solid gold at my head?"

She clasps her hands behind her back. "Of course not, Lord Tulio. I was simply presenting your rightful tribute, as you ordered."

Miguel beams. "That's right! We did send her a vision, didn't we, Lord Tulio? She's our, um...." He blinks. "Exactly what are you to us?"

"Your priestess, Lord Miguel. My only wish is to serve the gods, remember?" Her playfulness falters at his sudden queasiness. "You can also just call me Chel if that pleases you."

"It does," Miguel answers immediately. "Very much so. But, please, my name is just Miguel. I can't be on such impersonal terms with our first... p-p... well, you know."

He sticks out a guileless hand. Chel reaches to shake it. Tulio stammers. Before he can call out a proper warning, or just slap his partner's hand down, Miguel remembers himself. He grimaces and whips his hand back.

"O-On second thought, we should save that handshake for another time."

Chel's bewilderment quickly shifts into realization at what she had nearly shaken hands with. She folds her own behind her back. "If you say so, Miguel." Dark eyes turn from green to blue. "What do you prefer, my lord?"

"Just 'Tulio' is fine."

Honorific titles are a novel experience. So are mortals addressing him by his given name like they're equals. Why can't he have both?

A wry smile splits her face. "Nice to meet you, Tulio."

He grins. "Likewise."

"Is there anything else I can do for you now? Anything at all?"

Tulio's brow furrows at the sudden tone to her voice, the expectation in her pause. He glances at Miguel. His partner shrugs. Altivo snorts loud as he can. With a scathing glance at their clothes, he tosses his head and prances outside. Only then do they realize they're guests of honor at a feast where everyone believes them to be divine. And that they're aspects of death straight out of traipsing through the jungle.

Miguel grimaces. His clothes, already the colors of sputum and all other byproducts of pestilence, look even sicklier with travel stains.

Tulio picks at his robe. Once he considered it a massive improvement over his faded old funeral shroud. Now his cloak's smooth darkness is mottled with white sea salt and brown mud. It smells of grave dirt and sour sweat, because recently Tulio's body has decided physical exertion in heavy humidity needs to be even more unpleasant than before. He uneasily brushes back strands of hair from his eyes. The unruly curls spring right back out of place. He almost misses how lank and lifeless it used to be.

"We had a long journey here," Tulio admits. "We'd certainly appreciate more... appropriate attire. Wouldn't we, Miguel?"

"Yes, please," his partner blurts out immediately. Because Miguel's uneasiness to this little lie by omission cannot dampen his vanity.

Chel darts off. She rushes back with her arms full. She almost thrusts her tribute upon them, before remembering they're _death._ In her zeal she flings it. Bolts of cloth plop over their heads.

"Better put these on quick. Your public's waiting."

Tulio pulls his off, blinking in surprise. The cloth isn't deathly white or solemn black, but green lined in blue. He supposes it gives color to his corpse-pale skin. Miguel's garb, sumptuous red and violet, clashes against his complexion. His soft hair remains the color of brittle old straw. When not flushed, his face still retains the yellow-green tinge seen in only the most terminal of plague victims.

Not that Miguel, normally draped in billowing robes the color of pestilence, cares about what best suits his color palette. His eyes widen. He grins with excitement that belies his sickly skin. He promptly peels off his shirt.

Tulio slips his arms free from their sleeves. Right before his robe drops past his waistline, he frantically snatches it with bold hands. Chel's eyes are riveted to their forms, her lower lip stuck between her teeth. Heat floods into his cheeks.

"D-Do you mind?"

"No," she blurts out easily. Tulio's stomach flutters at her tone, then her nervous laugh. "Oh! Right. Uh, excuse me."

Chel fumbles for the curtain behind her. She lingers for one last look. Dark eyes trail from Tulio's waistline and up his torso to meet his gaze. Chel bites down a giddy smile before whipping the curtain closed.

Tulio gapes after her. After a long moment, his lip quirks up.

Then an impish elbow to the ribs jostles him back to reality. "Maybe the legends should call this place 'Chel Dorado.'"

He sighs dreamily. "She's w..."

Oh.

"Whoa!" Tulio cries, dropping his robe in sudden panic. That ravishing smile drops from Miguel's face. "Whoa. Wait a minute, she's b... trouble! _We're_ trouble!"

"W-What?"

Tulio frowns and tries to untangle his thoughts. Thoughts around _Chel,_ the thief who whacked him with a stolen idol and then used them both to talk her way out of execution. She's looked them both in the eye and nearly shook a destroying angel's hand until Miguel remembered himself. She's grinned and joked and ogled them both like... like...

Tulio glances down at his own torso, corpse-pale but rib cage no longer so prominent, partly smoothed over by a layer of fat and muscle from weeks of good eating. He flushes again at the memory of Chel's face, a hungry expression he's only ever seen from Miguel. And then the heat in his cheeks flows down-

_Oh._

Tulio frantically gropes Miguel's shoulders. "Can you do me a favor and clear your mind of all this? Just for a moment?" His partner dutifully nods. "N-N-Now think about Chel. What's the first thing that pops into your head?"

Miguel's ponders this. Then he grins. A purr rumbles out of his throat.

_"Miguel!"_

His face slackens in horror. "Oh." He pales. "Oh, no."

"Tell me about it," Tulio mutters.

"B-But that isn't-"

Tulio waves at his biggest piece of evidence, himself. "Clearly it is!"

"You're you!" Miguel shouts. "And Chel is... is..."

"Attractive?"

"Ye- _No!_ No, of course not. S-She's just..."

"Uh huh," Tulio deadpans. "Now put her mortality in the mix."

Miguel grimaces. They kill _humans._ And their true purpose sails closer every minute. Just because fruit temporarily stopped withering in their hands doesn't mean Chel won't keel over if they ever actually touch each other. Instantaneous death is the best case scenario, a sudden burst blood vessel and painless passing. Her coy smile might rot under a kiss from either of them.

"I... I've never..."

Tulio sighs and presses a kiss to his forehead. "No. I didn't think you would have."

Most of Miguel's fallen siblings had been charged with being direct Watchers over mankind, dangerously close to the same temptations they were meant to guard against. The human appearances that kept their mortal charges at ease had made them tempting in turn. Destroying angels avoid humanity until the imminent moments of their passing. Their touch brings death to mortal flesh. They are numb to the same desires that must have eaten away at other angels.

And then the damned beach had awoken new urges in one hapless angel and the reaper stranded with him. They'd shamelessly satiated each other's appetites. Of course they're gluttons for punishments too.

"Well that's... that's just not fair!"

"When have we ever been fair?" Tulio tiredly retorts.

His partner sags against him. "Oh, Tulio. What do we do?"

The reaper shrugs and uneasily turns away. "Just wait it out. We... Well, the problem will solve itself soon enough."

"Yes. Of course." A bitter laugh escapes Miguel. "Until then we're supposed to be _gods,_ aren't we?" He vehemently rips off his travel-stained pants. "One must avoid giving into temptation." Tying that rich red cloth around his waist, he takes his other adornments to preen in front of his reflection.

Tulio fiddles with his own garment. Even though there's enough fabric to trail from his head down past his knees, he can't quite arrange it into a cloak. The piece of thick blue fabric lined in gold is even stranger. What's it supposed to be, some sort of head piece?

Miguel drapes another garment over his collarbone. He slides on golden wristbands and clips on earrings of red stone. With a fond sigh he comes over to help. Taking the fabric from Tulio, he deftly readjusts it over his waist and ties it closed. It only covers Tulio down to his knees. That smaller piece he wears like a necklace still leaves his torso bared.

"Is-Is that it?"

Miguel hums. Tulio's wristbands keep sliding off his bony arms, but he still clips his earrings on and covers his head with a feathered crown. "That's it."

"I... I feel naked."

His partner blinks. "You used to wear nothing at all."

"Yeah," he hisses. "Back when I had _nothing_ to hide."

"Well, it's certainly not nothing n-"

_"Miguel!"_

"Sorry, sorry. Got a bit too carried away there."

Tulio glances longingly at his soiled cloak. "At least you have the build to pull this off," he grumbles. "I... I'm just gonna unnerve people, Miguel. More so than I usually do. I ascended from bare bones into desiccated corpse to slightly better looking c-"

Grasping him by the shoulders, Miguel firmly but insistently guides him to the same golden stele he used as a mirror. Tulio gawks at his reflection. His human guise used to be skin deep, pulled taut over the bones beneath. Shameless gluttony has lightened shadows under his eyes and lessened the hollows in his cheeks. The face he barely recognizes might be one mortals, and not just a special Angel of Death, actually may find a-

"See?" Miguel chirps, slapping his back. "You're looking pretty godly to me. Just... in need of a feast. A _glorious_ feast!"

"B-B-But-"

"Relax, Tulio. All you have to do is smile, act self-righteous, and follow my lead."

Miguel guides him into plain view of the city below. Tulio's protests cut off. He freezes. Only his partner's hand on his shoulder prevents him from curling up on the spot and somehow finding a way to die.

For a long moment, a breathless silence hangs over the night.

Then energetic, if slightly frantic, music drifts up from the crowd. No one keels over or starts screaming about the end of days.

When Miguel beams at him, Tulio can't help but smile back.

Side by side, they step down into the throng.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my research for this fic, a theme that kept cropping up in death lore was its pervasiveness- up to and including taking the lives of the most pious people, and from people sheltering within sacred places of worship. And, of course, death's utter implacability in accepting substitutes, pity, or trickery (unless, of course, in the folktales with clever protagonists that mange to outwit death.) So, rather than be entirely on board with the usual shameless gluttony, we're getting a Reaper!Tulio with creeping suspicions already about what this arrangement might bring. 
> 
> Fortunately for Tannabok and Tzekel-Kan and the whole damn city, they're also getting the idiots that have had a chance to loosen up and awaken desires death spirits from their part of the world don't ordinarily have... rather than the two tired, bitter idiots that could have been cooped up with Cortes this whole time.
> 
> Some people can get away with just brushing by death... if only for the time being. Full-on physical contact, even something as innocent as shaking the hand of one very touch-starved Angel of Death... I'm sure this question will never be breached :p


	8. count your blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chel's had a very, very long day.
> 
> And the day after it will be even longer.

Chel started today destined for sacrifice. Stealing an idol from the Great Temple had been the desperate move of an acolyte with nothing left to lose. Charging down into the darkness that separated the city from the outside world, she had known in her bones she would never see her home again. Either she would miraculously escape or death would find her first. She would have never let herself be dragged back alive to Tzekel-Kan's altar like her brother had been. Not now, and not ever.

Chel is not surprised she met Death today, even if both are not the deaths she expected. The Lady of Death is an old and jealous goddess. By reaching the stele of the Dual Gods Chel must have reached the city boundary, and opened her soul to forces outside her native gods.

Rather than cut her down, Tulio had offered a patient hand. She's bounced stolen tribute off his head and had her blatant lies backed up by him. Miguel has accepted her as their priestess and sheepishly refused to take her soul. Death has _delivered_ her. Tonight Chel is priestess to deities more formidable than the Jaguar God himself. Tzekel-Kan worships the Lord of War and Conquest. Chel is protected by the force that swallows both.

What will tomorrow bring? Chel has no idea. Tulio blurted out they were a few days _early._ Death doesn't drop by for visits and conversation. Just because Lady Raima's volcano has stopped smoking for the time being doesn't mean it won't blow its top and take the whole city with it. Chel can't stop that anymore then she can predict it. But tonight's a good night, a _very_ good night. She's alive, she's high priestess to the Dual Gods, and Tzekel-Kan will not be the one to take her from this world.

Her god will never take her to the Jaguar God, not now and not ever. Chel knows this to her bones.

While her gods make themselves presentable, Che gleefully does the same. She chucks aside her old clothes for a gown in the rich red and white afforded only to the highest of priests. She finds slender gold armbands. What Chel really wants is a set of gold earrings, one to proudly mark her as a full Manoan citizen and not just a Person of the Vine, but tearing the temple apart will have to wait. Their public is waiting.

Chief Tannabok and Chieftess Miya have thrown together the first parts of the feast in record time. Tzekel-Kan would probably sneer at their efforts and demand they do better. Chel offers only smiles and words of approval. Positive reinforcement from a 'religious authority' calms some frenzied performers. Whatever her gods have planned, no one needs to drop dead of stress-induced heart attacks over a party. (Especially if its the last great party Manoa ever celebrates.)

Just as the last pieces are being thrown together, the gods finally emerge from their temple.

"Big smile," Chief Tannabok urges the musicians. "Like you mean it."

Their frantic smiles grow a little wider. Chel pretends not to have heard that. Instead she beams up her boys. Giving them clothing more traditionally associated with the Dual Gods was the perfect decision. Tulio isn't shrouded in his night-black cloak and Miguel looks less washed out than he did in those unsettling colors. They look a little less deathly, and a little more divine.

Miguel prances his way down the steps. Tulio follows a few paces behind, smile rigid as his movements. Chieftess Miya stands with two toddlers in her arms and a babe swaddled on her back. Their grins grow wide and terrified. They give her as much space as they can.

Positioned among her fellow priests, Chel bites back a wince. Even as they bow, people scooch backward to distance themselves from divinity. Maybe it's mortal reverence for the divine. Maybe it's mortal avoidance of death itself. Her boys encourage their caution. They keep to the middle of the aisle and away from both rows of worshipers.

There is no avoiding Chief Tannabok. He stands with a bowl of undiluted red wine, the pure vintage intended only for altars and the holiest of sacrifices. His face is magnanimous, his gaze unwavering. Manoa's future rests on his shoulders. Chief Tannabok will not be the one to crumble.

Two gods glance at each other. Tulio steps forward to claim their tribute. His fingers tentatively grasp one edge. Chief Tannabok gently foists it into his grip even as his own hands slide back.

"Wine, my lord," he declares. "Grown from Lady Paquini's finest grapes and distilled by her own high priests and priestesses."

Interest kindles in the god's trepidation. He sips a vintage centuries younger than the pulque he must be more familiar with. His face skews at its sour taste. Manoa holds its breath. Right when Tulio seems on the verge of spitting it out, he swallows and smacks his lips. The city sighs in relief.

"Huh," he muses. "So that's what all the fuss was about." His partner snatches the bowl from him. "Careful, Miguel, it's a bit-"

Miguel drinks. A grin splits his face. Then he spews his wine into the torch above Tulio's head. The light flares from the alcohol, its edges flaring ethereal white. Chel's hair stands on end.

"Well," Miguel rules, "I like it!"

He downs another mouthful. This one the idiot keeps down. Tulio tries to wrest it from him. Instead his partner tips it up for him to imbibe. Tentative smiles break out in the crowd.

Chel rolls up her sleeves. As an acolyte she learned all the best hits for a festival. Now as a priestess she strides forward to warm up the crowd. Out come the puppets and dancers to stir up some energy in the crowd. The music kicks it up a notch.

Altivo is an easy god. He devours golden apples and bowls of pulque. The crowd marvels when he leaps bonfires and prances over burning coals. Acolytes fearlessly braid flowers into his luxurious mane. Somehow he is both approachable and dignified.

His riders are harder to love. There are no displays of power, only awkward smiles and ominous promises the city will know their might soon enough. Firelight does eerie things to their forms. Miguel's silhouette flickers with far too many limbs arching behind his back while Tulio's looms black and solid, darker than the surrounding night. At times Chel swears she sees eyes blinking open and close across Miguel's naked torso. Tulio's bones cast dark shadows against his skin, as if his flesh is just an illusion.

Manoa does not know how Miguel was so eager to go by his name alone, to shake hands with a humble thief. Nor do they know Tulio blushes at any attempt to thank him, and redder still when someone dares to check him out. Chel can't be scared of them now. Under their scary shells they're awkward little turtles.

She orders the first courses served. Pulque and maize beer flow like water.

Her boys finally relax with the first bite of their glorious feast. They devour everything heaped onto their plates, spicy chili and fruit and rich cakes. Between mouthfuls they down cups of wine. An invisible tension uncoils in their audience. Their offerings are a smashing success. No need for human blood to be spilled tonight to slake their thirst. Caskets of wine vanish down their gullets.

A rhythm settles among the servers. Platters are rotated around those holy thrones without disturbing their occupants. When in need of refills, the gods leave their cups at the edge of their reach, and only pick them up once the cup bearers have passed.

People stop treating each dish as keeping them from the altar. First they take pride in their offerings being so readily accepted, then they foist more helpings on divinity with the gentle, unquestioning insistence perfected by generations of grandmothers before them. Lord Tulio certainly needs to catch up on a thousand years of missed tribute. Who on earth was feeding him during his time away? Even Lord Miguel, who has more meat on his bones, should take all good hot meals he wants. His complexion reminds them of sick relatives in need of tender love and care.

With bellies sated and tensions unwound, Chel ramps up the revelry. Out come cigars and sparklers, even more dancers and drummers, all the life she can squeeze into one mortal night.

It's too much for the gods to contain themselves any longer. Under his breath, Miguel starts to hum, then louder still. A few mumbled notes escape. Chel's neck prickles. Before his voice can raise into true song, a squirming Tulio stumbles from his seat. The audience reflexively flows around him. His lurching, hypnotic movements settle into a dance. One by one, revelers drunker than he is reel into a line behind him like dancing puppets. Oblivious smiles stretch wide across their faces. They'll follow him to the ends of the earth, into the dark of their gr-

Miguel's voice, loud and clear, rises above the drone. The music swells with him.

Tulio whirls with it, spinning away from his line of mortal followers too fast for them to follow. His steps gain fluidity, flourish, and no small amount of flirtation. Chel stands enthralled. Is the night on fire or just her face? With every reel around the plaza, Tulio dances faster, leaps a little higher. The music crescendos and-

Unceremoniously cuts off as the god drunkenly stumbles on his finale spin and face-plants onto hard stone. Miguel yelps and rushes for his side. Manoa cringes.

Tottering to his feet, Tulio laughs, and his partner joins in. They fumble for wine cups. Mortals far drunker than they are eagerly oblige to fill them.

Chel drags a hand down her face. She had one cup of wine early in the night. Now she's too damn sober to follow these idiots into blissful intoxication. Especially as more of the revelers start stumbling for home or collapsing in corners. The quiet souls retired hours ago. The children were shuffled off with them.

She clears her throat and tries for sweetness. "My lords, perhaps it's time to-"

Hand in hand, her idiot gods careen into the night, singing in such slurred tones she's not even sure they're speaking Manoan anymore. The lyrics still drape with innuendo.

Uh oh.

Chel chases after them.

She catches up just as they collapse in a mostly deserted plaza, beaming blearily up at the stars.

And there go her plans of ushering them off while they were still sober to put themselves to bed.

Chel glances around for help. Altivo, the one other immortal she knows, is drunkenly tottering in the other direction. His four legs can barely hold him up. Time to scrape together some half-sober acolytes, some poles, and a litter. At least she can get them into bed. Tzekel-Kan will just have to deal with the gods being dirty and disheveled tomorrow morning.

Unless...

"Miguel?" she murmurs, crouching near the nearest idiot. "Miguel." He mumbles blearily into the ground. _"Miguel."_

Chel just wants to go to bed. And that can't happen until these boys are in bed. Exhausted from a very long night, she shakes his shoulder on reflex... and too late remembers her mistake.

She whips her hand back, heart hammering in her chest. She doesn't drop dead on the spot. Her flesh doesn't rot off her fingers. There's not even a shock of static electricity.

After a long moment, Chel pokes him again. Death should feel cold and sharp as Lady Miskitli's obsidian wings. Miguel is warm to the touch. He feels no different than any living, breathing person.

Green eyes crack open. "Ch... Sh.. Shel?"

"Yes, Miguel?"

He peers dizzily up at her. "W-When there'd get to be so many of you?"

Chel laughs and grabs an arm to haul him to his feet. "Come on, Miguel, it's long past your bedtime." She gags as his odor assails her nose, sweat and wine and the bitter stench of sickness. "And way, way past your bath time."

"Both," he slurs. "Both is good."

She laughs. "It's cute you think you have a choice."

Miguel stumbles at her wording. He almost drags her down. Gritting her teeth, Chel pulls him back to lean against her, and tries to rouse Tulio too. Instead Miguel flops down atop his partner. Tulio bolts upright with a yelp. Their bickering slurs so badly it's not even Manoan anymore.

Chel rounds up the most sober acolytes she can find. They're still inebriated enough to help carry gods up to their temple and the waiting bath tub. No one dies. Her boys don't even seem to realize they're being hauled like bags of maize. They chatter to each other the whole way up. When they drag her into the conversation, Chel only smiles and nods. Then they start slurring more nonsense over who she might have agreed with.

Dumping them into a steaming bath finally shuts them up. They lean against the side with contented groans.

"Watch the wings," mumbles Miguel, who has no wings at all.

"Watch the hair," Tulio grumbles to the man yanking a comb through his snarled locks. "Took me a hundred years to grow it out."

Chel orders the acolytes to be as generous with the soap as they were with the wine. One curious sniff at their gods, and they start scrubbing vigorously.

Her first instinct is to stuff her gods into more Manoan clothes, but dressing up death doesn't change what they are. Tomorrow is indeed a day where blood shall be zealously shed in their names. Such a solemn occasion deserves severe black robes and strange garb the colors of pestilence. 

...Not that Chel can. The acolytes supposed to wash their clothes have sheepishly admitting turning the temple upside down without finding them. And the gods certainly aren't up to conjuring anything more tonight. So into more hip wraps they go. This time Tulio gets deep blue and Miguel emerald green.

Upon being dumped into bed, Tulio rolls over a mound of luxurious pillows to suction himself to Miguel. His partner returns the sentiment by nosing into his hair. Chel's heart melts. After she dismisses their attendants, she lingers at the threshold of their sleeping quarters. One god starts snoring. She tries to remember her initial terror, that sinking resignation to an end that would at least not lead to Balam Qoxtok.

All she remembers is that first fleeting glimpse of their fear for _her,_ then a wave of awe before their stoic masks had slipped on. The warriors ready to take her life instead hesitated a death none should have seen. No one spots Lady Miskitili before she's damn ready to take them. In that moment, Chel had spotted a glimmer of hope, and seized it. Throwing stolen tribute at death had been her only chance. And she would have kept offering it until they either accepted her plea or cut her down for it.

Instead solid gold had bounced off Tulio's head and somehow won her willing accomplices to the most bald-faced lie ever uttered in Manoan history.

"Good night, boys," she calls.

Tulio snores a little louder. Miguel blearily mumbles something she takes as a response.

Chel grins and retires to a couch almost as comfy as that sumptuous mattress. She hopes for a sound, dreamless sleep.

Old ghosts find her anyway, her grandma's ragged death rattles and the stench of her grandpa's cauterized flesh. She fights against the crowd that keeps her from her mother, who walks willfully into oblivion. She runs in vain from the Jaguar God that ambushed her father from behind and lapped her brother's sacrificial blood.

Her vision shifts. The Jaguar God becomes a horse, pale and gaunt. Its skeletal rider raises a curved, blade. He is no less terrible than the ragged wings and hundred all-seeing eyes that fixate upon her. She is caught between them like a bone between starving strays.

But neither are Balam Qoxtok. They take her life out of duty alone, without a single ounce of pleasure. This is nothing personal. 

When Tzekel-Kan and his acolytes strut into the temple before dawn, they find the priestess of the Dual Gods awake and expectant. She stands impassively by as they carefully bundle two sleeping gods into a litter without ever touching them directly. She will not be the first life in this city taken by them. When her time comes, it will come gently, and not demand her life's blood be spilled upon their altar. She tells herself she has gotten in to get out.

The words ring hollow in her head. 

Tzekel-Kan gleefully takes charge. He sneers down at her with the same expression that had left her shivering just the day before.

Chel stares dully back. His skeletal mask is gold and veneer. It cannot compare to the stark truths hiding behind the sleeping, placid guises of the death sleeping between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chel is no stranger to death. That doesn't mean she ever welcomes it - not for her, for her loved ones, or for the city she believes next on their list. 
> 
> Medieval depictions of death were really into the Danse Macabre/the Dance of Death, where death lures in people from all walks of life, from beggars to kings, into a merry and unwitting dance to the grave. Fortunately for Manoa, Tulio is super, super drunk, but also a flirt and and a showoff given an admiring crowd for the first time :p


	9. a proper tribute

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tzekel-Kan offers the sort of sacrifice he believes any discerning deity would appreciate.
> 
> It goes as well as you'd expect.

In one moment, Miguel drifts in peaceful oblivion, warm and dark.

Then he blinks awake to white bone and golden teeth set over a grinning human face.

"Good morning, my lords!" Tzekel-Kan chirps from under his mask.

Once he ducks out of sight Tulio groans long and hard into the crook of Miguel's shoulder. "God, my head. Is... Is this pain? So this is why some people beg for-"

"The gods have awakened!"

They bolt upright at the roar of the crowd, a blaring horn that nearly splits Miguel's throbbing skull right open. No longer are they secluded in their temple. Instead they sit in a litter open to the outdoors. Across the edge of a chasm all Manoa has gathered to cheer for their 'gods.' Instead they get two foreign embodiments of death bleary from their first hangover.

Tulio nearly flails out of the litter. The broad-shouldered attendants bow a little deeper and instinctively scooch a bit further back. In the end the reaper pops up into a dignified posture. He hastily ties back his mane of unruly hair.

Miguel lethargically climbs after him. Once his bare feet hit the ground, his aching headache eases. The crowd resonates through him like the Host normally does. Part of him wants to curl up and die under such... accidental betrayal of everything an angel stands for. Instead he graces them with a wave and fixes his off-kilter hip wrap. Tzekel-Kan and the city have gone through the trouble of preparing a reverent ceremony for them. It would be rude not to wave back. Especially when they don't yet truly know whose arrival they're celebrating.

Utterly at a loss, Miguel looks to Tulio. His partner shrugs back. Chel steps view and scatters flower petals in her wake. Last night she had organized their feast with the confidence of a queen. Now her posture is hunched and expression shuttered close.

"Hey, Chel?" Tulio murmurs. "What's going on?"

Chel _looks_ at them.

Miguel's breath hitches. His wings, long bound and numb, ache to escape. He turns back to the crowd with horrified realization. They cheer at the top of their lungs to make up for their tight smiles and the fearful whispering beneath. Chief Tannabok makes no pretense. He stands grim as an executioner.

"This city has been granted a great blessing!" Tzekel-Kan calls. "And what have we done to show our gratitude? A meager _celebration."_ He all but sneers the word. His chief's eyes narrow. "The gods deserve a proper tribute!"

"Blood sport?" Tulio guesses under his breath. "Something even more intense than a bullfight?"

Miguel mutely shakes his head. Despite Tzekel-Kan trying his best to whip the crowd into a frenzy, their fear dampens that faint spark of blood lust. It is not an arena they stand above. A maelstrom of water roars below.

A new age calls for the cleansing of old sinners and nonbelievers. Zeal can create as much work for a destroying angel as fear itself. Miguel is no stranger to it. He has tenderly gathered up weeping souls from battlefields and razed city quarters. With baited breath he waits for the crowd to turn against each other. On this Tulio makes no bets. Despite the coming dawn, the shadows nearly cloak him.

No prisoners are dragged out in chains. Instead a golden platter is carried before them. Upon it is a sack, tied in bright ribbons and festooned in flowers.

_Oh._

Tzekel-Kan waves his arms. Magic, _true_ magic, moves with him. For a moment the world is plunged into utter darkness.

Finally, Miguel _sees._

The reaper at his side, shrouded in shadow, firmly throws out his skeletal arm. Flaring out all twelve of his ragged wings, the Angel of Death shields his partner anyway. The darkness around them prowls like a cat. It is nothing compared to the shadow above them, descending on obsidian wings to-

**_"STOP."_ **

Still separated from the Host, his voice echoes all the same, for his partner speaks with him. Tzekel-Kan's power gutters out, his spell enveloped by a pale, ominous light that leaches into dawn itself. The world falls silent. All Manoa holds its breath, as Sodom and Gomorrah had in their final moment of-

A trembling hand gropes for dear life. His partner squeezes back.

The breath that could have unleashed untold devastation is released as a slow, shaky sigh. Their audience exhales with them. Color floods back into the world. Tzekel-Kan stands frozen. He can no longer push his _sacrifice_ forward when his very cudgel disintegrated in his hands. The wood has rotted from his hands. Even the obsidian shards have crumbled into black sand.

No longer on the edge of his quintessential purpose, Miguel blinks two mundane eyes, and feels the insistent weight of his wings slide back into numbness. Tulio's shadowy cloak retreats. Their glares are no less terrible. Tzekel-Kan falls to his knees to gibber apologies. They advance with cold, implacable steps. The high priest is no different than all the countless souls before him that thought themselves clever or conniving. No servant, no slave, no firstborn child, can every sway death from its true target.

On the edge of another precipice, an Angel of Death stops himself. He stares down the high priest groveling at his feet. Beyond his burning anger, every fiber of his being whispers _Not. Yet._

A destroying angel never acts on impulse. Since his creation, he has dutifully carried out the rulings of a greater force. He is not drunk enough on false divinity to falter from that.

His partner, never so bound, raises a scythe on the verge of tangibility.

_"Tulio."_

Tulio lurches back from a boundary not even a reaper can break. Miguel places a steadying hand on his shoulder. Together they inspect the high priest that still apologizes over and over for misreading their desires so egregiously, what tribute might even begin to make up for such callous blasphemy.

Oh.

_Oh._

Two embodiments of death slump in sudden understanding. This man had not been a bribe or bargaining chip, but a _gift,_ offered as earnestly as Chief Tannabok had wine or Chel a grateful smile. Tzekel-Kan wants only to make them happy.

"This is not a proper tribute," Tulio rasps, dry as brittle bone.

Yes, clearly. Half the city looks ready to wet itself. Miguel twists his grimace into an awkward smile.

"Don't worry about it. To err is human. Our jobs would be a lot less strenuous if, well..." He clears his throat. "You tried. I'm sure you had great intentions but it's, um, always a bit insulting when people k- offer us... _that sort_ of tribute. You mortals live such short lives as it is. Why do you keep pushing others to meet us even sooner?"

"Um, yeah." Tulio flushes. "What he said."

Tzekel-Kan seizes onto his chance. "You are as generous as you powerful, my lords, to forgive a follower ignorant as me. Clearly even my most sacred texts have been incorrectly passed down through the centuries. I swear to you both, that I shall do everything in my power to remedy my-"

His back is turned to the man, drugged and bound, still swaying precariously over a roaring whirlpool. Miguel aches to catch him. His touch will bring only the final comfort. He gnaws his lip at the paradox.

"Allow me, my lords," Chel murmurs.

They scuttle out of her way. Their priestess strides past Tzekel-Kan without looking once at him. She catches the man just as he finally collapses. Despite his weight, she grunts and starts hauling him from the altar. Belatedly Tzekel-Kan stands to help. Chel coolly stares him down. Instead his burly attendants rush forward. She delivers the man into their arms with firm orders to take him to the city's finest healer. With hasty bows, they obey. Miguel can only stand there and try to project his gratitude from beneath.

Once the man disappears from sight, Miguel hopefully turns to Tulio to salvage this situation. His partner shrugs back. Centuries of debating souls to turn against an angel have not prepared him for all the perils of conversation with living, breathing mortals.

"Might a different tribute suit you, my lords?" Chel asks. "One as eternal and resplendent in its glory as you are?"

"W-We certainly can take a look," Tulio blurts out immediately. "Can't we, _Lord_ Miguel?"

"Of course," he agrees. For all he rankles at the title, this seems like a certain way to delay death another day.

Chief Tannabok perks up. "My lords, may the people of Manoa offer you our tribute."

From the shadows walk beautiful maidens, supporting baskets of gold between them. With bright smiles they hold up their tribute. It glimmers enticingly in the morning light.

Rationally, Miguel knows he should turn up his nose, and politely decline a gift far more loaded than a simple feast. Chief Tannabok is far from the first ruler to have offered him wealth beyond what most mortal men have dreamed of. No wealth, no land, no silver or gold, has ever swayed him before. Ultimately his partner is no different. Tulio likes fleecing the living for the momentary thrill. His winnings are promptly discarded afterward. What use is wealth to a reaper who takes no pleasure in earthly delights?

Those principles echo faintly in his head, dull and distant as the Host. Miguel drools over this mortal vice as he has so many others. Tulio nearly swoons.

"Yes," he sighs. "Very nice."

Too late do they remember dignity. They don aloof facades that were once second nature to them.

Miguel crosses his arms. "Certainly acceptable."

Tulio waves a hand in forced casualness. "Yes, lovely. It'll do."

Chief Tannabok sees right through them. He beams and throws out his arms. "The gods have chosen!" He offers a questioning hand. "To Xibalba?"

Their smiles falter. Miguel glances down to the roaring whirlpool, gateway to a realm called _Place of Fright._ His partner stares in morbid curiosity. The destroying angel who has dispassionately delivered countless souls to the gates of hell flinches away.

"Perhaps you would prefer your tribute directed to your temple, my lords?" Chel prompts. "There you might bask in the reverence that has been shown to you."

"Bask!" they say together. "Bask. Basking is good."

Chief Tannabok accepts this without batting an eyelash. A grand procession begins to arrange itself. Of course the 'gods' are paraded at its head. Their litter-bearers don't shrink back when they gingerly climb in, and lift them without anyone keeling over. Altivo breezes out of the crowd. He refuses to let Chel walk. Instead he noses her astride him. She rides at their side, graceful as a queen.

Miguel stretches languidly. "Not bad for a day's work, eh?"

"Not bad at all!" Tulio laughs. He kisses Miguel's forehead, right where his brow meets his hairline. "This gold really went to your head, didn't it?"

"W-What's that supposed to... Oh."

His partner brings a lock of hair into view. Miguel blinks. Yesterday it had still been the color of old straw. Now it's sunny gold, a color he can't blame on either the morning light or the glimmering curtains draping their litter. His lip quirks up.

"Well, I like it."

With the sun fully up, he considers his partner. Tulio's ribs are barely visible. His skin practically glows with a warm undertone. Miguel's vision tilts. For a heartbeat, he glimpses beneath Tulio's human guise. He beams. "And you like gold too, hm?"

Tulio flushes. "W-What's that supposed mean?"

Miguel's teasing smile gains a sorrowful edge. He kisses him back. "You'll find out soon enough."

The morning is bright and golden as their tribute. A dark shadow lingers in the east. Tulio knows as well as Miguel their destiny has finally landed. Under the heady glow of Manoa's joy, a sliver of icy obligation has seeped into them. Miguel's wings itch under their binds. Tulio must feel it in his bones.

But that destiny will not find them today. It might be weeks away. Despite their instinctive pull to this place, death had taken a long and winding trail to this city, soaking up the sights and each other. Cortes has no such clues to his destination. He'll have to trek miles of untamed jungle for a city sheltered behind a waterfall... if he even believes in the El Dorado legend. He might wind up marching his army elsewhere, for targets far less shrouded in legend.

For the first time, Miguel prays fate will pass Manoa by, and spare them as it had Chel.

Then he casts all thoughts of the future into the same dark pit he has banished all the others too. Two partners bask in their present and try to forget the shadow they embody.

* * *

Elsewhere, a conqueror steps ashore, and stakes his claim upon this virgin land. A red and golden flag unfurls. For God, for gold and glory.

What should be a victorious day is tainted by the odd detail out, one that had spurred Cortes to choose this landing site over all others. Up close there is no denying this abandoned longboat had come from his own flagship.

His men warily scout the beach for survivors. They are as dreaded as much as they are anticipated. If righteous, God-fearing Catholics have been delivered into this paradise, then they belong to Cortes. And they must be his. He had chosen his crew as carefully as the disciples of Christ. No stowaways had ever skulked their way aboard. This he believes with all his heart.

No emaciated sailors stumble out of the jungle to greet them with hugs and joyful tears. His crew find no signs of a camp. They discover only human bones, too old and yellowed to belong to any Spaniard. Cortes disdainfully shatters a pagan skull under his heel.

"These men drowned at sea," he rules. "God help their souls."

He folds them into his first prayer in this land awaiting enlightenment. He vaguely remembers one of these men had been named for the archangel, had been oddly compelling in reminding men of their mortality and God's ineffable judgement in all his sermons. The other escapes him. Perhaps he has found salvation in death, perhaps he has not. Such a decision lies solely in the hands of the Lord.

His men should be moved by the reminders they are the blessed ones that have survived this long to conquer and convert this pagan land. Instead they whisper among each other.

"It couldn't be."

"But it _is._ Look, it's all right here!"

"He's right. The whistling rock, the stream. Even those mountains!"

Their conspiratorial huddle falls silent when the conquistador's gaze snaps upon them. The source of their whispers is contritely delivered into his hands.

His men cannot keep their story straight on exactly how they acquired such a map. Cortes' anger at their hidden vice quickly fades. There is no denying the land marks on the map coincide with this shoreline and promise a tantalizing trail inland. Perhaps the map is genuine. Perhaps it is not. Either way, it is good strategy to chart a course upriver. Even godless savages must know it logical to build beside such a water source.

Cortes never promises his men El Dorado. Neither does he deny their faith. Driven by visions of gold, they march straight into the jungle, and push themselves further than he ever can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most incarnations of my idiots in other fic are old enough to remember pagan forms of worship even if they weren't deities themselves back in the day, and so would expect a form of animal sacrifice. Reaper!Tulio only goes back to the 1300s. Miguel has been rooted in a strictly Abrahamic Iberia for the past 1000 years. Their frames of reference for what might be happening thus jump to different things - such as blood sports that might see great attendance on religious holidays... or far nastier things that happened in the wake of the Black Death and later in Granada's fall, and we're just gonna leave it at that.
> 
> And, instead of a 'show of devotion' that results in untold amounts of death, Death instead gets tribute directly offered to them. Yeah, that went as well as it possibly could have. Because, hey, nobody died... not yet, anyway.


	10. take the day off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What harm ever came from one day of rest and relaxation?
> 
> ...Assuming you weren't a reaper on the edge of multiple existential crises.

Prior to the last few weeks, Tulio could count his possessions on one bony hand; his scythe, his pale mare, his cloak, and a pair of loaded dice. Nothing else had been truly _his._ His various other gambling tools had been stolen and looted across the decades, discarded when souls came to favor newer forms of cards or game boards. Now he stands within his own temple and gleefully assists Miguel in dictating where _their_ piles of tribute should be displayed.

Their task might have been easier if they weren't so obsessed over every piece. Miguel wants to know how old each one is and where it came from. At first Tulio only counts them. Then he discovers the need to cradle each one. Somehow he knows the names of the women who carried the tribute baskets, the exact moments their fear of their 'gods' blossomed into something else. He drinks them in.

As the flow of tribute stalls, Chel neatly steps in. Gold piles up in organized stacks. Even as floor space shrinks and acolytes pass by, Tulio never fears he might brush against one by accident. Chel thanks and dismisses each attendant whenever they slow down to gawk. Tulio's smile stretches even wider. He can barely recognize the terrified thief from yesterday in this self-assured priestess.

Tulio's smile falters. He glances to Miguel. With the last attendants filtering out, his partner has abandoned dignity to sprawl over a pile of tribute. He basks like a snake in sunlight. He is blond, rosy, and utterly content. He looks almost nothing like the sallow, diligent Angel of Death Tulio met centuries ago.

Something cold squirms in Tulio's gut. He glances anxiously to the east. Just because he can't spot the smoke yet does not change the fact Cortes marches all the same. This temple isn't home. This tribute isn't his or Miguel's to keep. All they've done is gather it up for the conquistadors.

Tulio blindly fumbles for... something. His scythe is still beyond his reach. Instead his dice dutifully fall into his hand. Over and over, he tosses them. They're his greatest source of comfort. Two hundred years later, they still carry a tinge of gratitude from one thief left to die in the street. Tulio's mare had carried his soul into pale fields of asphodel. Before he had dismounted to follow some somber shepherd into the unknown, that thief had passed his trusty dice into his reaper's bony hand.

Those dice had been his only gift. They had reminded him of a purpose slightly more fulfilling than a blind harvest. In hounding one particular Angel of Death, a reaper might not always be so despised by the souls he cut down, and might sway some to his side. That reaper still could not keep any souls he stole, but at least he had a rival that would always _compete_ with him, and not try to smite him as all other destroying angels had done.

That reaper had no name beyond his purpose. His angelic rival had never deigned reveal his true name to him. Even when competition had mellowed into partnership, they had addressed each other beyond teasing insults or their latest aliases. They had never hugged or bumped shoulders or shook hands to acknowledge each other's victories.

Now Tulio tosses those loaded dice and takes no comfort in their weight. He remembers when they had been one spark in his void of an existence. He had contented himself to a kernel of gratitude, and never realized he was starved. Tulio shivers and drops them back into oblivion. Instinctively he reaches out for warmth. He snags a pair of earrings from the tribute pile. Though roughly the size and weight of his dice, they anchor him like his first treasure no longer can. In tossing them he quiets his racing heart.

Tulio basks in the gold's warmth and puzzles over it. Not too long ago he had only known such a sensation when a body had grown cold under his touch. Since tumbling into the sea after an idiot angel, he has shivered under downpours and sweat under a blazing sun. Mostly because that same angel had started making him blush and trip over his words.

Blue eyes flicker to Chel. She picks over the gold and sets aside a dozen ill-fitting pairs of earrings. Her optimism curdles into dissatisfaction. Tulio steps close as he dares and presents his own tribute. Her eyes light up. His heart soars.

"These," he announces with utter certainty. "These are the ones."

"Oh," she breathes. "Thank you."

Chel fearlessly reaches down to take them from his palm. Tulio nearly lets her. He yanks himself back from the precipice. Deftly tossing them to her, he plasters a suave smile over yet another aching new hunger and sidles away. The last few wondrous weeks with Miguel have taught him every day is precious. Chel deserves every one she has left without Cortes to darken them.

A thought suddenly dawns. Tulio frowns down at himself. Neither he or Miguel are wearing what they wore last night. Cleaning them up must have been a logistical nightmare. Suspiciously Tulio sniffs his ponytail, then sniffs again. He crawls over the gold to nuzzle into his partner's hair. Miguel's intrigued purr cuts off. His nose crinkles.

"You... don't smell like grave dirt."

"And _you_ don't smell sick anymore."

After so many hot and sweaty days trekking through heavy jungle, they're no strangers to long soaks in the closest body of water. Certain impermeable smells seem to never wash out. A clean horse always smells like a _horse,_ like a destroying angel still retains the sharp tang of bile or a reaper the mustiness of a moldering grave.

...Until now.

They frown at Chel. She beams innocently back, brushing the hair away from her new earrings. Something about the gesture makes her 'gods' slump against each other.

"It took scrubbing," she admits. "A _lot_ of scrubbing."

Tulio expects the blood to drain from his face. Instead his cheeks burn. Miguel's rosy skin flushes redder than it ever has before.

"W-What sort of scrubbing?" he squeaks out.

She shrugs. "Between the possible taboo of touching divinity and tossing you two into bed drunk and disgusting, I chose the lesser of two evils."

"But we're..."

"Two death deities," Chel finishes archly, even when Miguel flinches. "I know that, just like I also know you only take lives at their destined times, and not one moment sooner." A smile quirks her face. "Even if you two drank as much in one night as the whole city does on Lady Paquini's feast day."

Tulio sputters. Miguel's scandalized expression softens into yearning. Chel approaches their tribute pile. One shies away. The other leans toward her like a flower starved of sunlight. She offers a hand and a gentle smile.

"I'm ready for this if you are."

With a slow, tremulous hand, Miguel reaches back. Tulio wants to slap it down, out of fear for Chel or fear for what Chel might take from them. Tulio wants to beat his partner to the bunch. Indecision leaves him paralyzed. He can only watch as a mortal thief and an Angel of Death finally finish introducing themselves.

For a short eternity, Miguel gapes down at two clasped hands, and the mortal woman who stubbornly refuses to drop dead at his touch. He sobs a laugh and yanks Chel into a squeezing hug.

"Still need to breathe," Chel gasps.

The idiot immediately lets her go. "Um, sorry about that. Just got a bit carried away."

"Way away," Tulio adds. "You could've..." He blinks down at the hand now directed at him. "Uh, Chel, what are you doing?"

"You're partners, aren't you? That means I have to offer you the same deal."

"B-But... what if I'm more... _potent_?"

"Oh, you worry too much!" Miguel scoffs. "History's proven I'm far more lethal than you'll ever-"

"Miguel!"

"I'm not bragging, Tulio, just stating the facts. We both know I had a seventeen hundred year start on-"

_"Miguel!"_

Something pokes Tulio in the cheek. He blinks. Chel beams back, then smooshes his face between both hands for good measure.

"See?" she chirps. "Still alive. Guess you're not as potent as you thought."

He stutters incoherently. Chel pulls away. Tulio rubs one cheek and tries to glower at the indignity. An idiot grin cracks through regardless. Miguel pats his shoulder in consolation. Before he can assure his partner he's still potent where it counts, Chel again offers her hand. Tulio reaches out to take it... and is instead pulled into a crushing hug.

It's a _very_ good thing he doesn't actually need to breathe, Tulio thinks hysterically, or drop dead from a heart attack. Even if his heart thunders in his chest. When did he even _get_ a pulse? His human guise used to be skin deep! Now he's all too aware of the mortal arms around him. For a long moment he instinctively leans into an embrace warm as Miguel's. He freezes. Does he return her embrace or shy away?

When Chel finally pulls back, Tulio wilts in relief and disappointment. "W-What was that for?"

"You saved my life." Chel bits her lip, then blurts out, "Also, you looked like you needed a hug."

"We almost _ki-"_

"But we didn't," Miguel butts in.

"No," she agrees. "You didn't."

Tulio rolls off the gold. The misdirected tribute suddenly does not seem invitingly warm, but hot enough to burn. He stalks out to the temple threshold to scan the horizon for smoke. Instead his gaze trails down to the city itself. Its vibrant buildings gleam crimson and gold. Its streets are not yet piled high in bodies. Those canals are still crystal clear.

Miguel pads over to lean against his side. "This place is amazing."

He sighs. "It is."

Green eyes drink in every detail they can. "I wonder what's down there."

Chel clasps her hands behind her back. She hangs back just enough for Tulio to notice the distance between them. "Turtle ferries. Flying men. The best markets around." Dark eyes narrow at suspiciously empty streets. "An idiot priest that bullied everyone inside so he can make a big deal of ceremonially cleansing the city."

The temperature around them plummets.

 ** _"What?"_** Miguel hisses, voice splintering into an ominous multitude.

Chel rolls her eyes. Miguel blinks, twelve ominous shadows around him fading back into dormancy. Their priestess is mildly pissed, not terrified the city is about run red with blood. An iron vice eases its grip on Tulio's heart.

For a moment Chel's irritation wavers, then softens at their confusion. "Tzekel-Kan ordered everyone to hole up in their homes so he can smother the streets in prayers and incense. You can't re-consecrate an altar without cleaning old its old mistakes, and Tzekel-Kan screwed up so bad he thinks all the city needs to shut down with him." She waves them off and starts down the temple steps. "Don't worry, I'll handle this."

Their safest option is hole up in their temple and glut themselves until all earthly pleasures once more crumble into dust. After all, they're not even supposed to be here yet. Tzekel-Kan has already nearly shed blood in their name. If someone tries to grant them a purpose before Cortes comes....

Chel makes it three steps before Miguel follows her. Tulio is tugged with him, their fingers twined together.

Tulio can pull him back. He can remind his partner he worries exactly the right amount and that their best course of action is to just lay low.

Tulio has unthinkingly followed Miguel into raging seas and shared forbidden fruits. Of course he surrenders to one last adventure.

As they descend Tulio fixates on the neighboring temple, carved in skulls and fearsome demons, he had first mistaken for their own. He remembers the mask Tzekel-Kan had worn before nearly claiming a man's life, gold teeth and imitation bone. "Hey, Chel? Exactly what sort of god does Tzekel-Kan serve?"

Manoa believes them two ancient deities returned after a thousand years. Since first laying eyes on them Chel has known they have never belonged to her people. "He's high priest of the Jaguar God, Balam Qoxtok." She glances back at them, eyes dark with newfound revelation. "Lord of War and Conquest."

Tulio sighs. "Yeah. That sounds about right."

It's high time for a family reunion. With Cortes march three other horsemen. War has always been the most melodramatic all of Tulio's older brothers, swift as Pestilence and hungry as Famine. In their wake Angels of Death circle like vultures. They will claim conquistadors and unsaved souls alike.

Fear of the future soon fades from his mind. Miguel marvels at fantastical architecture and smiles wistfully up at the bright blue birds flitting overhead. Tulio basks in his awe. It's not quite his dream of walking peacefully through a mortal crowd, but Miguel is still wondrous and unafraid. Being gawked at as a false god doesn't cause him to draw back into his shell like the typical mortal dread to his presence.

The first soul they spot is Chima, Tzekel-Kan's brawny head warrior. He stands in the center of a deserted marketplace. Chel fixates on him with predatory intent.

"Excuse me," she calls. Chima turns, faltering at her presence as much as he does at the two ominous aspects of death looming behind her. "Excuse me, but why does it look like the people have been cleared from the streets?"

"B-Because Tzekel-Kan ordered them so, my lady," he answers. "The... incident from earlier was his error. He saw no reason to trouble you when it was his responsibility to cleanse the city."

"Uh huh." Chel crosses her arms. "And I'm sure Tzekel-Kan was so eager to start the Age of the Jaguar that he forgot that I'm Lord Miguel and Lord Tulio's chosen speaker. Or that he's negating Chief Tannabok's appeasement too in trying to undo his own mistake."

"Um...."

Three heads snap to a disturbance further down the street. A single man cowers before two young warriors trying to bully him back inside. Over the centuries Tulio has witnessed countless acts of cruelty with casual indifference. This sight, tame in comparison to so many others, makes his blood boil. He and his partner stalk forward.

"Hey!" Miguel snaps. **_"Stop that!"_**

Two warriors whirl around. They gape in horror at Miguel, who looms despite his stature, and a reaper whose human guise is suddenly paper thin. Even as they bow and frantically blurt out apologies they frantically scuttle out of their path. Their victim has no such chance. He's prone on his back and frozen like a startled rabbit.

Miguel rounds on the warriors. Chima's excuses die on his lips. Tulio rests a placating hand on his partner's shoulder and smiles a skeleton smile.

"Life is short, isn't it, boys?"

The two young warriors gulp. Only Chima finds his voice. "It-It is indeed, my lord."

Tulio smiles wider. "Then you three should take the day off and really enjoy it. You never know how many you have left."

The warriors shakily drop their spears. They bow and scuttle off.

Miguel barely spares them a parting glance. "Are you all right?" he asks, holding out a helping hand to the poor mortal man trembling at their feet.

The man sinks further to the ground. Tulio gently squeezes his partner's arm and prevents him from kneeling any closer. Miguel's comforting smile crumbles. Just because their touch is not yet lethal doesn't mean a mortal heart can still give out in fright if they get too close. Tulio glances to Chel for assistance. Even death's priestess does not have their same overwhelming presence.

Chel's gaze flickers between two hapless 'gods' and the man cowering before them. She waves an expectant hand. Tulio sputters.

Miguel bites his lip and ponders the words of angelic wisdom that might salvage this situation. "Um, fear not?"

Tulio rolls his eyes to high heaven.

His partner bristles. "What? That's how we traditionally introduce ourselves!"

"We're clearly past that part, Miguel."

"It's not like we're spinning wheel of eyes, Tulio, or have three extra heads. I don't even have six pairs of wings or a few hundred pairs of eyes! I'm just..."

"You," Tulio sighs. "You're still you."

Miguel slumps. "I know."

"And I, um, appreciate that, my lords," offers the man at their feet. They gawk at him. "That you manifested just the way you are and not as... spinning wheels of eyes."

Miguel's lip quirks up. "Thank you. So am I."

When he offers his hand again, the man finally takes it. He lets go as soon as he's back on his feet. After a few quick bows to them and Chel he scurries off with as much dignity as he can. Miguel sighs after him. Tulio squeezes his shoulder and consoles him it could have been worse.

"I know, I know." The Angel of Death morosely glances up at a window. Their eavesdropper gasps and drops back out of sight. "Now what?"

Chel primly crosses her hands behind her back. "You tell me."

"Aren't you supposed to be our speaker?" he counters.

"Clearly my two gods are more than capable of speaking for themselves."

Miguel's brow furrows. Green eyes turn from those lurking at their windows to their abandoned stalls. He scavenges a drum, a straight piece of wood, and strings. Chel and Tulio watch as he expertly crafts a true instrument from his odd assortment of items. When his work his done, Miguel settles back against a wall and tunes his marvel. He plucks his strings, and creates music.

"A guitar, huh?" Tulio asks.

A blush rises to his partner's cheeks. "You know how much music is a part of me and, um, how much knowledge I theoretically have. There's no reason I couldn't make my own guitar. I've always wanted one, but..." He ducks his head. "You know how many responsibilities we usually have, and how many family frowns down on... frivolities."

"If something gives you joy, it has a purpose," Chel retorts.

Miguel grants her a smile. Tulio beams. He always loves being surprised by Miguel's hidden depths, like his secret fondness for bawdy old tavern songs and even that exasperating way he weaponized his pout as his greatest means of persuasion. For a time he and Chel simply lean back to soak in Miguel's ballad, soft and wistful.

Then Altivo rounds the corner. He nickers a greeting.

"Hey, Altivo," Miguel calls casually. "There you a-"

His song cuts off. Tulio sits bolt upright. The little girls at Altivo's side take shelter behind his legs. The boy on his back only gapes.

Tulio has reaped countless children. The young are especially vulnerable to his scythe. Upon death, they are the only souls he desperately foists off on Miguel. Most children instinctively flock to the angel's arms already, fearless despite how many wings or eyes he appears with. Those too young to do so scream in a reaper's bony hold until chucked at the nearest source of heavenly salvation. Now he huddles into himself and avoids making eye contact.

After a long moment, Miguel's smile returns. He strums up another song. The girls stop hiding behind Altivo and creep closer to the guitar. Tulio tries to draw away. There's no escape. The more Miguel ramps up his music, the more people venture out of their homes, and the further a curious crowd draws in.

Miguel's spell doesn't just effect mortals. Tulio grits his teeth as an old desire wells up inside him. When death dances, the living can't help but join in. They'll follow him all the way to their graves.

_God damn it, Miguel! How do you always find new ways to-_

Someone brushes up against his side. Before he can lurch away, a hand surreptitiously closes around his own. It's just Chel. For some reason his thundering heart subsides.

"Do you need to leave?" she murmurs, too soft for anyone else to hear.

Blue eyes survey the scene. The destroying angel that once killed every revel he blundered into is swift becoming the center of a spontaneous celebration. An old hunger rears its ugly head inside him. Beneath it festers envy just as old, and far more terrifying. Tulio bites down on hard on his tongue. Terrified of what hatred he might spew, he nods...

And keeps nodding. As Miguel's ballad quickens into something livelier, Tulio's head bobs along. Warmth floods into his bones. He realizes it's the joy of the crowd, their fear evaporating into something heady as wine. It sweeps away inhibitions. Altivo playfully bounces the little boy on his back. The girls laugh and spin each other around. Miguel leaps from his seat and whirls into the crowd. Tulio's spirit soars with him. He grabs Chel's other hand and drags her into the dance.

He moves fluid as a flamenco dancer and bold as a matador. Where Tulio sways, his partners fall in step behind him. Chel and Miguel have never danced this style, but they do not fall under his spell so much as they find his wavelength. All else falls away.

When Tulio returns to himself he's slathered in sweat and gasping for breath. Chel leans against his naked chest, winded but still very much alive. He risks a glance at their audience. No one's danced themselves to death. Instead they shower them in applause. One man ignores the frazzled dancers to peer curiously over Miguel's guitar. The angel perks up. He shows off a few simple cords, then gently hands off his guitar to a new player.

Tulio blinks down at Chel. She blinks up. Their sweaty, heaving bodies are still pressed together.

"Um..."

Miguel slips his way between them. He grabs their hands and steals them away. Their audience is still a bit too enthralled to realize their 'gods' have gone. Altivo stares cryptically after them.

A safe distance away, Miguel laughs and slumps against Tulio's side. "So, what next?"

"'What next?'" Tulio squeaks.

Miguel beams. Tulio's knees quiver.

Chel purses her lips in thought. And grins right back.

Tulio nearly swoons.

"How do you two feel about heights?"

Oh.

Oh, thank God.

Tulio's gaze snaps back to his partner, an angel who no longer destroys mortal lives at his very touch, or who very much resembles an angel at all. Miguel's back remains whole and unmarred. He's proved several times today his grace is still very much intact beneath his mortal guise, no matter how convincing it's become since leaping after a drowning horse god.

"Heights are good," Miguel chirps. "Aren't they, Tulio?"

Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to relax and enjoy what time they have left. "Yeah, partner. Heights are good."

As long as one doesn't Fall from them. And they won't, not now and not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter almost killed me :D Then Tulio decided to vomit up several hundred words of navel-gazing because apparently that first thief he reaped from under Miguel's nose gave him those loaded dice and a sense of purpose now on the verge of shattering. Fortunately Chel has reminded our idiots of a nifty little thing they were too blitzed to really remember happening last night. She also has a lot less patience then she does with our idiots' usual waffling in their divine puberty, because two idiots need to find their purpose here and find it quick. So they can clean up their own damn messes for a change.... or maybe just kill them. Chel really doesn't think it's her place to judge... not yet, at least ; )
> 
> Given how badly Tzekel-Kan felt he must have bungled that first sacrifice, I don't imagine his immediate solution would be to just throw more human lives on the altar and see what stuck. A 'cleansing' in Manoan culture makes sense as a time of prayer and ritual cleaning, a time to cool down after a botched sacrifice and re-check those omens. Resetting an altar gives a chance to try again, or decide a sacrifice wasn't needed after if Lord Cassipa finally stops crying or Lady Raima stops smoking. Not uncoincidentally, it gives Manoa a chance to unwind from an unsuccessful sacrifice and not go into a riot if the high priests keep demanding yet more lives without any sign they're on the right path to appeasing an angry god.
> 
> And, in a nifty bonus, Tzekel-Kan cleansing the city of his fuck-up also maybe comes with the handy benefit of negating the full effect of Chief Tannabok's tribute, and give Tzekel-Kan himself a better chance of connecting to the gods. Yeah, I'm sure that plan would have worked out real great for him XD

**Author's Note:**

> This story was supposed to be a one shot. I'm hoping it will be at peace with behind about as long as 'behold the child', and not another freaking 50k epic like the the fae one.
> 
> Miguel's identity here is inspired by the Abrahamic religion's very long and fascinating lore around destroying angels/angels of death. Especially those bits about such angels having twelve wings and an eldritch number of eyes over their bodies, because of course death doesn't miss a thing. There's another bit of lore that states angels of death drip a single drop of bile from their swords into the mouths of their victims. That's... the gentlest way Miguel takes his chosen souls.
> 
> The Black Death sometimes took more than 50% of a city's population, and drove up Europe's fascination with death to such a degree that the first iteration of what we know today as the Grim Reaper. Of course, the Reaper isn't so grim back then. Because the middle ages were big on irony and constant reminders of mortality, Death in this era is most often personified as dancing skeletons/corpses leading a parade of people from all walks of life to the grave. Needless to say, this Tulio has a very... macabre sense of humor XD


End file.
